With only a few weeks left before we turn the page on 2017, birders around the world have been burning their proverbial candles at both ends to observe as many birds as possible. Did you partake in any Christmas Bird Count excitement this weekend?
I have to admit that I abstained from the CBC this year, prizing personal comfort over citizen science. Sign me up for a Memorial Day Bird Count any year! Anyway, two species of nuthatch are visible from my toasty warm kitchen, so let’s give this weekend’s honors to White-breasted Nuthatch. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was an easy one to choose this week because he found a new bird for the Queens County Christmas Bird Count, a Hooded Warbler! Sadly, even such a find could not propel Queens to a new record for the CBC, as they had 123 species total, one off their twice-achieved record count.
How about you? 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.
My 1st time joining the La Paz CBC, and my first ever baja Sur Merlin will take top honors this weekend!
My best of the weekend was also a new one for the Queens County CBC – a MacGillivray’s Warbler!
My CBC team here on the Olympic Peninsula found 78 species, which is quite good for this area. Best was a Marbled Murrelet right below the pier. I’d never seen one so close. These are magical (and endangered) seabirds, as they like to lay their sole egg high in the mossy branches of old growth, up to 45 miles inland, and then the parents take turns bringing fish from the sea to the nest until the baby can fledge. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9175754
77th Oakland (CA) Christmas Bird Count: my best “bird” was the annual Ladybird (beetle) aggregation in Redwood Regional Park. And our count section had Varied Thrush and Wrentit to show a Maine visitor, two “lifers” for him. Since our section missed out on Varied Thrush and Purple Finch in 2016, these were the best birds for me this weekend.
@Carrie: whaaaaaaaaaat??!!??
CBC’s aren’t really done in Germany, and I haven’t been birding in ages. So I’ll have to go with a nice big flock of around 135 Black-headed Gulls on the river Neckar in downtown Heidelberg.
Have loved birds all my life and I’m in my 60’s. Have had many kinds of birds and bred parrotlets. Would love to have parrots again but I’ve developed feelings of not wanting to keep them in cages anymore. Although we did build a large Avery for our macaws and amazons. We just don’t have the space anymore. So I’d love to continue watching and learning about all those that I have the privilege to see!
The experts over on the “Advanced Bird ID” FB group seem to be in agreement that this was a “gray-headed” Orange-crowned Warbler.
Some nice best birds for everyone. Mine was my lifer Spotted Rail in Costa Rica, a species I had heard but had never seen.
A lifer for you? In Costa Rica? Wow!
Dang.