Wouldn’t it be nice if, considering how special weekends are to most of us, we each learned something new every weekend? This weekend was actually quite educational for me… I learned yet again what a fickle mistress traffic can be in a big city. No, this isn’t a birding-related insight, but a life lesson to be sure. Have you learned anything new lately?
The best birds of my weekend were Double-crested Cormorants winging over New Jersey’s Meadowlands as I left Sunday’s Giants game. Corey’s BBOTW was an Orange-crowned Warbler at the Quaker Ridge Hawkwatch in Greenwich, Connecticut.
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.
Regarding learning experiences from this weekend, I discovered that one of the best Italian restaurants in Costa Rica is situated near birdy Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Costa Rica (it is called the Pecora Nera). I also reaffirmed my belief that the southeastern part of the country is one of the better, overlooked birding areas in Costa Rica. Best birds in and around Manzanillo were Tiny Hawk, a Crested Owl roosting on a log at eye level at the edge of the forest, and Purple-throated Fruitcrows. Oddly enough, the rarest bird was a Least Flycatcher- a rare vagrant in CR and my first for the country!
The Linnaean Soc. sparrow workshop had outstandingly close views of Clay-colored Sparrows at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, Saturday. I remember when that was a rarity in this part of the world.
Bald Eagle flying over Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA, followed closely by a first-for-me Clay-colored Sparrow at Mass Audubon Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary the next day.
We took our 4-year old granddaughter on her first camping trip ever and had perfect weather to enjoy. She actually lives 2 miles from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, but she was here in Texas visiting us. She brought her own field journal to write down all the birds we saw https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/cUeSS_Rhe_YR-Q0fqVsTo9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
And thanks to some drunken college boys who kept us awake with their carousing until 3:45am when the park ranger finally came and shut them up, I think I heard a Great Horned Owl, but I didn’t see it, so I’m not adding in my life list.
I had three best bird of the weekend, all in Ottawa, Ontario (ascending order): Greater White-fronted Goose, Western Grebe, and (self found) Tufted duck. As learning goes, I learned how difficult it is to separate a female-looking tufted duck from a hybrid, after spending three hours of my life trying to figure it out.