After a weekend that felt far more like a last blast of winter than a runway to spring, I’m ready for an equinox and the exciting climatic changes it presages. How about you?
My weekend was utterly dominated by an attenuated celebration of my son’s 9th birthday, but I could still appreciate the reappearance of Common Grackles in my backyard. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was actually a pair of birds, his first Wood Ducks of the year. He spotted them at Baisley Pond Park in Queens.
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.
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.
Long-Tailed Duck at Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis!
Female White-winged Crossbill at the feeders outside my apartment – one of the closest looks I’ve had at one.
Probably White-flanked Antwren at El Tapir just outside of Braulio Carrillo National Park in Costa Rica.
I’m trying to decide between a pair of Northern Pintails or a bunch of Ring-necked Ducks; maybe both were best of the weekend.
We usually only see the Ring-necks in early spring as the ice starts to give way. Pintails are somewhere between casual/spotty to regular, but whatever, they’re always elegant and head-turning. I wrote about them and more at http://www.mybirdoftheday.ca
I’m on grandma duty in Seattle for three weeks so I’m adding some common western birds to my life list (I started birding in my old age): Varied Thrush, Band-tailed Pigeon, Bushtit, and the very interesting looking Townsend’s Warbler. Also got a nice close look at a pair of Wood Ducks at Juanita Bay park in Kirkland, WA.
European Golden Plovers near Heidelberg were very nice, but I have to say that physically seeing a Bali Starling, a new-comer to Heidelberg Zoo, was beyond thrilling. After all, with a tiny, tiny wild world population of a handful of birds at best which is boosted regularly by the release of captive-bred birds, it doesn’t get much better than seeing them in captivity anyway.
It is a toss-up between my first American Wigeon (a pair!) which ended up being clearly visible even with just binoculars, or a Winter Wren singing in a spot with no previous record.
I don’t actively scout out for life birds, so it’s really neat when I get a new one!
A Red-necked Grebe on Marrowstone Island here on the Olympic Peninsula… swimming near 31 Harbor Seals that were floating along and staring at us!
Red-breasted merganser at Virginia Beach!
We had two major wonderful bird experiences this weekend: on Friday we saw and got to watch a Red-naped Sapsucker out at Hueco Tanks State Park & Historic Site; on Sunday, the loud calling that my husband heard in a neighbor’s palm tree turned out to be an American Kestrel. The Sapsucker was a completely new bird for me. The Kestrel I’ve never seen in the wild before. We’re hoping that the Kestrel is planning to nest in that tree – we’d love to be able to watch the growth of his family.
Anna’s Hummingbird at Union Bay Natural Area in Seattle. Any photo of this bird you’ve ever seen is absolutely no comparison to the amazingness of seeing it in person. (One even perched for a good five minutes in a small tree maybe 20 feet from me—how often do hummingbirds stay still?) Breathtaking, and Best. Lifer. Ever.
Antillean crested Hummingbird on Antigua
Prairie Warbler. Only the second time I’ve seen one. Beautiful breeding plumage.
Hooded Merganzers plying the waters of the neighborhood pond on my way out to the city nature preserve in Lexington, Ky.