Any time of year that features skies filled with birds pretty much all day demands attention pretty much all day. If your neck is sore from being on a swivel this weekend, may I suggest swiveling with your hips to get through the rest of the month?
I spent a good amount of the weekend on the road and beheld more roadside Belted Kingfishers than I’ve ever seen. Interestingly, most of them flew in pairs. Corey had a great weekend of birding, from morning flight on Saturday to an exploration of some nice coastal habitat on Sunday. Of the four new year birds for him the best was one of several Nelson’s Sparrows at Big Egg Marsh, always a great bird to see, and Corey saw several very well as the high tide forced them out of the marsh.
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.
Senegal Parrot
Without a question,, Little Gull. This has been a nemesis bird for me in WA. Rare here, it was located Friday at Point-no-Point, and I managed to seee it Saturday along with about 20 other birders. I learned something. The easiest field mark to find in the field is not necessarily what jumps out of the field guide. The bird was on the water initially with a large flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls. In basic plumage, I was looking for a bird with some black on the crown in addition to the face black marking. Another birder spotted the gull, and exclaimed that it was the one with white wing tips. I quickly learned it was easier to look for the one tiny gull without black folded wing tips than to see a tiny amount of black on the crown. When it took flight, the black underwings clinched the ID, but lesson learned. First WA state Little Gull is now on my list.
I participated in eBird’s Global Big Day at seven locations, seeing 32 species and tallying 727 birds. Some highlights were over 100 Black Turnstones mixed with over 100 Black-bellied Plovers, 28 Sanderlings, 22 Surfbirds, and a few Dunlin on a beach at Fort Flagler State Park. Some were quite noisy. When a raptor appeared, they all flew away. On the other side of the spit, dozens of playful Harlequin Ducks dove and chased each other. So my best bird? The Surfbirds, as I’d never seen so many before, tied with the beautiful Harlequin Ducks.
A nice weekend for a best bird! On Saturday, during a day of 160 plus species, we seriously lucked out with a mega for Costa Rica Gray-hooded Gull found by local birder McKoy Umana.