How was your weekend? Mine was fun and footballtastic. In fact, a game is on even as I write this, which means I’ve got no time for idle banter. The best birds of my weekend were Seahawks, Eagles, Falcons, Cardinals, And Ravens. Am I the only one here excited about the return of NFL football?
Corey had a hard time choosing his best bird of the weekend. There was the White Ibis in New Jersey, the Caspian Tern, the Buff-bellied Sandpiper, another White Ibis, this one in New York’s Orange County, a Bald Eagle, and a host of other birds. But the birds he most appreciated were three American Golden Plovers, two of which are pictured below:
What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us in the comments section about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment.
A Red Crossbill in full song in the Vogelsberg mountains north-east of Frankfurt/Germany.
It could easily have been the 2 cy male Pallid Harrier hunting a kilometre or two away from where I entered the Autobahn on my return journey home on Sunday – had I known about and chased it. Darn “age of information”.
Swallow Tailed Kite eating a drgonfly in flight crossing over the river near the fishing bridges north of Geogetown, South Carolina. It soared while stripping off the wings of it’s meal and then without much effort turned to find some more lunch in flight.
On Saturday I got up close and personal with a few rescue birds, including a Black Vulture, at the free grand opening of the Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center five miles from my house. The guide on our tour said he had seen American Woodcocks more than once, so I may have to go try my luck there this winter.
I enjoyed a bird spectacle that I’d never seen before, hundreds of White-faced Ibis flying over Willow Park in Lehi, Utah. I haven’t experienced anything like that except for the spring Snow Geese at Fort Boise, Idaho. Another cool bird, was a Belted Kingfisher which repeated dove for minnows on the shore of the river. I was able to show it to the Boy Scouts on the trip and they were pretty darn impressed and the coolness of such an awesome bird.
The best bird of my weekend was about 200+ Lapland Longspurs, eating some of the leftover seeds and grains on many of our fields. I might blog about the Longspurs in this coming week, but I will have to remember to bring my camera with me. I had never seen this species of birds before, so it was a great addition to my life list!
Since the best bird of this weekend was rather dull (Double-crested Cormorant flying the wrong way), I’m going to borrow a bird from last week: a Cooper’s Hawk being harassed by two smaller birds. What made it the best bird was that it was actually calling — I’ve never heard a Cooper’s speak before and had to Google to tell if it was a Sharpie instead. Very cool!
I saw a bunch of expected species in the dry habitats of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Hard to single out a “best bird” because I didn’t see any rarities but a pair of Double-striped Thick-knees, a male Blue Grosbeak that sang from a roadside wire, and several Yellow-naped Parrots were pretty nice.
Pallid Harrier! Fair Isle & Shetland, Scotland, UK. I’ve started my own bird of the week on my blog… Have a look?
http://fair-isle.blogspot.com/2011/09/pallid-harrier-fair-isles-bird-of-week.html
Eight Wood Ducks in a hidden pond very close to home. They didn’t seem to mind our group at all and stayed put for some great digi scoping.