Mid-November tends to mark the point where the previous season gives way to the next one. Hope the birds of your next several months have started to settle in too!
Because Corey was busy celebrating Desi’s upcoming birthday this weekend with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Pennsylvania’s Poconos, he didn’t get out on a single birding outing. Despite that, he did get a Best Bird of the Weekend when he found a flock of Eastern Bluebirds feeding in the scrub behind a Friendly’s, which seemed like a suitable location. I was also unable to venture out for birds, but I was happy to happen upon a treeful of House Sparrows chattering as they flocked up for the night, feathers puffed out against the growing chill. At times like this one, I can imagine how beloved these birds are on the other side of the Atlantic.
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.
Saw a Tui feeding on the ground on a lawn, chasing what I assume were insects. 8 years in NZ and I have never seen them do that before.
Six Black Oystercatchers foraging at low tide as the sun was setting. Since it’s winter, the low tides here on the Olympic Peninsula are now at night, so I don’t see the oystercatchers as often.
Like almost every birder in the NYC area, and a bit beyond, I went to Central Park Sunday to see the Western Flycatcher that had been found earlier in the week. The flycatcher has become an ‘educational opportunity’, with ornithologists, evolutionary biologists, and birders weighing in on the Pacific Slope/Cordilleran split, recent research on populations that interbreed or behave like the other, and on exactly what constitutes a species. Some birders, frustrated by the uncertain identification, just wandered around mumbling, “Bad split, bad split.” I’m sure Corey will have more to say about the bird when he writes a post about it.