I’m wondering if Best Bird of the Weekend is too restrictive a way to consider the avians we encounter from Friday to Sunday. Of course we should seek reasons to celebrate every bird species we share our weekends with, but is the species that delights us most always the most memorable?
Corey had a Best Bird of the Weekend or rather a pair of birds, Stilt Sandpipers, that plopped down directly in front of him while he was digiscoping a juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher at the East Pond of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. He was very pleased to get such close looks at such a cool shorebird species with the sun low in the sky behind him.
I, on the other hand, saw nothing special enough to rise to the level of BBOTW. What really springs to mind is a Worst Bird of the Weekend award, which was won handily by the American Crow at dawn that heckled those of us camped out overnight at Frontier Field. That crow was the worst, narrowly edging out the Ring-billed Gulls complaining over anyone who tried to sleep past 6am!
How about you? What was your best (or worst) 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.
I got myself some shorebirds on the German Baltic coast over the weekend and can’t decide between Broadbilled Sandpiper, Marsh Sandpiper, Red-necked Pharalope and Kentish Plover. 🙂 Good times. Oh, of course there was also the nightly flight call of a Dotterel, a Spotted Crake and a Corn Crake. Geez, BBotW is difficult this time.
My best birds were 3 great egrets and 3 green herons. I know they are nothing special, but I live in the forest and do most of my birding around the cabin. Sunday I drove off the mountain and down to the Susquehanna River, so I got to see some birds that dn’t normally visit my forest. At the ca bin the best birds were a red-eyed vireou and the yellow-billed cuckoo.
Baird’s Sandpiper – probably. Also a Stilt Sandpiper and a White -rumped Sandpiper, all tough calls and credit goes to others for spotting and i.d-ing them (Can anyone tell me how you’d tell a Long-billed from a Short-billed Dowitcher in the field, at 200 yards +, in the summer or fall and in the E half of the continent? I dare you)
Red kites are always a joy for me (Friday, Saturday). I also had a nice view of a pair of common buzzards soaring behind Ikea (Saturday), multiple kestrel along the dual carriageway (Friday, Saturday) and a sparrowhawk sunbathing by the local pond this morning. Have had a raptorific weekend so far 😉 Hope to find nightjars tonight too.
My first juvenile semipalmated sandpipers of the fall: always red-letter.
Those are some nice BBOTWs! No shorebirds or cool crakes this weekend for me but a trip to nice foothill rainforest in Costa Rica turned up fine looks at a male Three-wattled bellbird, and we heard (but failed to see) a Rufous-vented Ground Cuckoo!
Mine *was* going to be the Great Blue Heron I spooked and which flew away, calling, because that’s the first time I’ve ever heard their craggy call. But it was trumped a short while later by a pair of whistling Baltimore Orioles I was lucky to glimpse high up in the trees. (Both sightings within a 5-minute jog of each other along the Chicago River.)
Baltimore Oriole wins. Every. Time.
Cape Barren Goose goslings were scattered about Phillip Island near Melbourne- a sign spring is nearly hear for us!
I drove up with my buddy Eric to New Hampshire to see the Mississippi Kites that nest in a certain neighborhood in Newmarket. It was only the second time we had seen them since they started nesting there about 4 years ago. We watched one soar over the trees for about 20 minutes. Such a neat bird!
If you stretch the weekend into Monday, then my BBOTW was the Curlew Sandpiper that was found at Mecox Inlet, Southampton, New York yesterday. Thankfully, it stayed around today. I bird Mecox regularly during the summer, so I was pretty chagrined to find out this great bird was there Sunday while I was in NYC! Here is a distant photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/queensgirl/9553454840/
7 lifers last weekend, all of which are colored black, white, gray and brown. Best was Trindade Petrel!