We’re midway through the first month of the year. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and you haven’t had at least one excellent winter birding experience yet, you’re not trying hard enough. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, I’m extremely jealous as around here, we’re contending with an evil blast of super-chilled Canadian air. Brrrr! So tell me… what are you doing this weekend and will you be watching birds? Comment below on the excitement you have planned!
You may have already heard that I have the distinct honor of running the workshop about blog carnivals at this weekend’s ScienceOnline’09 sciblogging conference. Hope to see you there! Since I’ll be in the home state of Nate of Nature Blog Network and Drinking Bird fame, I’ll be dragging him on a pre-dawn expedition to spot Red-cockaded Woodpecker. Wish me luck.
Corey has three days off and three specific trips in mind: on the sunniest day, he’s going to find Monk Parakeets, on the least windy day, he’s going to the beach (to bird, not bathe,) and on the least sunny, most windy day, he’ll be chasing whatever he hasn’t seen this year that’s accessible by mass transit.
Charlie will have no time to actually watch birds or even go outside as long as avians are being exploited and extirpated. Please do your part to promote conservation so that our friend may one day be free again!
Whatever you do this weekend, make time to enjoy Sky Watch Friday…
Here’s an angle on the Sydney Botanic Gardens, where Charlie has spied respendent Rainbow Lorikeet
(which should remind you that we’re only halfway through Parrot Month here!)
SBG is lovely, although when I visited it was in my pre-proper birding and even pre-blogging days. This weekend I intend to be mostly underwater hence no birding for me!
I’m taking some out-of-towner down to see the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers at an ungodly hour on what is supposed to be the coldest weekend in 10 years around here.
So that should be fun. 🙂
Saturday is the annual Lower Santa Cruz Raptor Count, so I’ll be heading north of Tucson with Darlene, Starr, Michael, and Morgan, counting Prairie Falcons and Ferruginous Hawks. Alison and I also had Black Vulture and Crested Caracara on a pre-count run last weekend, so I’m hopeful that those species are still around.
I’m heading up to the Carolinas this weekend as well for what they’re calling around my stopping grounds of South Carolina the coldest weekend in 5 years. So that should be interesting considering I don’t own any cold weather gear anymore. It will make it that much sweeter to come back home to Florida.
Hopefully my stop for wintering ducks will go better than my trips over the holiday break when the temps were very warm up in SC.
Hey Nate, you crack me up 🙂 It’s a bummer when people come from out of town and disrupt your entire routine isn’t it?
I will be heading down to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge and the Cosumnes River Preserve which are located in California’s Central Valley. Among the species we hope to see include the White-faced Ibis, Snow, Ross’s and White-fronted Geese, White-tailed Kite and Northern Harrier, Great Horned Owl, Yellow-billed Magpie, and down at Cosumnes, Sandhill Cranes.
I hope to bring back some great photos! Have a great weekend!
Very great shot on this one. Great blog you have, too!
My SWF entries are here and here. Hope you can pass by as well. Thanks!
I’ll probably be down in the Skagit Valley of Washington State photographing the wintering Snow Geese, Trumpeter Swan and the many Eagles and other raptors. MB
We’ll be celebrating my daughter’s birthday this weekend with family and lots of school friends invading, so unfortunately won’t have much time for birding. But I may sneak in a side-trip out along the Katy fields west of Houston to look for hawks and redwinged blackbirds…
I’ll be running up to New Hampshire to chase a Hawk Owl that was spotted earlier this week. Hey Nate – don’t worry about having to take a guest out birding at an ungodly hour on the coldest weekend of the year – I’ll be doing the same with FOUR guests the following weekend! Dig out those warm clothes and keep ’em handy! :^)
I’m not too worried, just teasing Mike a bit. I’m looking forward to seeing the woodpeckers again.
It’s below zero – I’m staying on this side of the door and letting the birds come to me.
I don’t recocnize that take on the Sydmey Bot. Gdns. Thought I knew them reasonably well. Nice shot with the islands in the pond. I won’t be going far, we have four varieties of parrots right here on the farm at the moment.