Get excited, bird lovers… a team with an avian appellation is headed to the Super Bowl! For the second year in a row, the Seattle Seahawks will represent the NFC, the Pacific Northwest, and bird lovers everywhere in pursuit of the NFL championship. Congrats, bone breakers!
My weekend wasn’t as eventful as Russell Wilson’s, but I did locate some open water in the icy Irondequoit Bay Inlet. A huge raft of seaducks included numerous Redheads, a species I don’t nearly see often enough. Corey’s Best Bird if the Weekend could have been any of several that he and David Ringer enjoyed on a run out to eastern Long Island chasing after rarities on Sunday. While the drake King Eider they spotted at Shinnecock Inlet was not the rarest bird they saw it was Corey’s favorite, so it gets the nod.
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 lifer Black-breasted Snake-eagle just nudges out the Palm Nut Vulture. Close run thing mind.
I had to make a quick trip to the south of the UK. Best of the weekend ,and perhaps most prolific ,would be the European Robins; they were everywhere.
They continue to sing throughout the winter and are really quite enchanting although quick to take cover. There will be more on them and other Britbirds on my blog later To read, click on my name above.
This very cooperative Common Redpoll beat out a number of other great birds seen out at Montauk Point, Long Island. It landed right in front of us at Lake Montauk, just as we were about to leave, and I had to immediately cry out to the person in front of me “Don’t Move!”. I haven’t seen a redpoll in several years, let alone one so close: https://flic.kr/p/qRBupw
It was pretty rainy this weekend here on the Olympic Peninsula, but just before the weekend I saw NINE Black Oystercatchers chowing down on limpets at low tide. I had never seen such a large flock!
Canada Goose. I know a Canada Goose isn’t that exciting. But thousands, and I mean thousands, all lifting at once was staggering. We didn’t even have a good guess at the number. Besides photos I took some video. Even though it wasn’t very good quality it shows the great numbers. Especially at the end of the video.
http://bushwhackingbirder.com/general/geese-geese-geese-swans-universal-mines-saturday/
Tie between a super satisfying Long-tailed Duck female (lifer!) and very distant views of my lifer Piping Plover!