What was your first bird of 2012? Let us know in the comments…and, if you wrote a blog post or have a picture of your first bird of the year online somewhere, well, leave a link in the comments too.
Happy New Year from all of us at 10,000 Birds! And here’s hoping you see many great birds, including lots of lifers, in 2012! After all, 2011 was a pretty great year and there is no reason 2012 can’t be the same!
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
I think I got three! As I lay in bed I heard what were probably Rainbow Lorikeets. I rose at dawn, left the block saying to myself “please not a myna. Please not a myna”, and straightway saw my first bird, which was a friarbird. Probably a Helmeted Friarbird, but it was there and gone. A moment later there was a stunning Pied Imperial Pigeon in the same place. So I’ll say that one.
The birding here is rather good. I didn’t see a myna until my third bird!
Well, mine was a European Magpie. Big cities aren’t the best place in the world to watch birds, but this one came at my window and it was a great moment to begin this new year. Happy new year !
American GoldFinch on the Nyjer feeder, I just turned around after reading the post and there he was.
Lesser Goldfinch (green-backed) on the Nyjer feeder followed, before I could blink, by a House Finch on the black-oil sunflower feeder. First non-feeder bird of 2012: American Crow. Good birding to all this year!
I had Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant. In other words, lots of them.
I had an American Crow for my first bird. I am always happy if my first bird isn’t a House Sparrow or starling.
I heard a Eurasian Blackbird sing in the dark of the morning, and the first bird I saw was a Carrion Crow.
Upon reading this post, I realized that I had yet to identify my first bird for 2012. I thought that a mere glance out the window would turn up a Tropical Kingbird, Turkey Vulture or Black Vulture but nothing was in sight! January 1st, 2012 is a beautiful, sunny, breezy day in the Central Valley of Costa Rica but mid morning is not the most productive time of the day to see anything avian. It took 5 minutes of scanning the treetops and wind-strewn skies to find 2012 bird number one- a Blue and White Swallow. Nice to get that instead of a Rufous-collared Sparrow or vulture! Happy 2012 to all!
Surf Scoter, out on the inlet in the morning light of the new year.
My first bird of the year was our resident Anna’s Hummingbird on the feeder 🙂
I wasn’t quick enough to get the camera out so here’s a shot from 2009!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rightantler/4158704406/
My first bird was one of the “urban” birds (house sparrow, european starling and pigeon). I’m not sure which was first because my first trip out of the new year was not for birding.
My first notable sighting was a peregrine falcon at the Long Island Railroad station at Jamaica in queens, NYC.
First heard: Northern Cardinal
First seen (a good 15 minutes into my run): Half a dozen European Starlings
First *interesting* bird: My good buddy, the Belted Kingfisher, buzzing the Chicago River
Oh, and @Corey: no Rock Doves encountered on the way to what I’m guessing was Jamaica Bay? 😉
Ring-billed Gull. Seen and heard. One of about 50,000 roosting on Jordan Lake in the predawn hours of the Chatham County, CBC.
I had 4: white ibis, snowy egret, little blue heron and a reddish egret, all fishing the same pond (and 4 entirely different fishing styles). Great way to start the year!
A group of magpies which is better than a murder of crows (which were my first heard bird of the year)…very common here in the Crowsnest Pass.
First bird of the year was an Eastern Screech Owl picked up before dawn on the South Nassau CBC in NY.
A lovely small flock of Bohemian Waxing, with the day rounded off with a half-dozen Red-tailed and Rough-legged Hawks! Sweet!
http://bbabcregion1.blogspot.com/2012/01/birding-2012-kick-off.html?spref=tw
Three Anna’s Hummingbirds. One female I think and two brilliant males dogfighting over the feeder. Enough 70 deg F days and they should be nesting fairly soon.
The first birds were Common Redpolls at my feeders. Blogged about it here: http://prairiebirder.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/the-first-bird-of-the-year/
Little Friarbird and Pheasant Coucal heard as we woke-first “seen” Bar-shouldered Dove.
My pair of American Crows woke me up to complain that there were no peanuts in their platform feeder! They even cawed to me the way that I caw to them, trying to get me to shamble downstairs so I would refill my feeders. I was very happy to see them, and hope they’re able to raise another family this year. The last offspring they raised was hit by a car right in front of my house. I was devastated… Other than that, I saw my usual families of male and female Northern Cardinals, Black-capped Chickadees, my boisterous Blue Jays, and assorted Sparrows.
My New Year’s Day was bracketed by owls: two Western Screech-Owls calling outside my window at 1:50 AM, and three Burrowing Owls in the afternoon, near the San Bernardino airport. Corey, the owls send their best ;~) Happy 2012!
@Meredith: I drove in the dark of predawn to avoid pigeons, starlings, and house sparrows.
@Corey: clever strategy! I’ll have to try that next time a bizarre bird shows up here January 1. 🙂
Black Capped Chickadee, Pileated, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, Am. Goldfinch, and White breasted Nuthatch..all at the feeding station at the same time.
House Sparrow, in The Netherlands.
First rare bird, yesterday, Iceland Gull.
Happy 2012!
Black-capped Chickadee. Then Blue Jay. Thirty minutes later a raven. Four hours later, two Mourning Doves. Five days later heard a lone Evening Grosbeak flying by. We’re just rockin’ the birding world up here in our great white north. sigh.