The last weekend of August reminds us that the seasons don’t only carry phenological significance. As eager as birders are for the beginning of fall migration, many parents are even more excited (some would say desperate) for the start of school. Yes, this is a big week in my part of the world!
As feared, work kept me from appreciating the richness of avian diversity in western New York, but luckily a juvenile Baltimore Oriole crossed my path to provide something fun to observe. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend could have been any of a multitude of species spotted on the East Pond of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Baird’s Sandpiper, Gull-billed Tern, and Northern Waterthrush are all nice birds but the trio of juvenile Black Terns foraging all over the pond, often doing close fly-bys, took the prize this week.
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.
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My best bird was a very demanding juvenile crow. I was exploring the intertidal zone during a minus tide here on the Olympic Peninsula, and kept hearing insistent squawking along with the normal gull calls. Then I saw a large juvenile crow foraging alongside an adult, insisting on being fed. The poor parent crow scrambled to feed itself and then the ravenous juvenile, over and over. Here’s a photo: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1899652
Black tern, Am golden-plovers, and buff-breasted sandpipers were nice, if not entirely unexpected, at Brigantine on Sunday. Most fun was watching juvenile short-billed dowitchers, though. Stunning animals.
I was lucky enough to join a group at the Militia Hill Hawkwatch in Ft. Washington, PA last week for Nighthawk migration … we had more than two dozen, with half giving us close fly-bys. And the next evening, I heard more Nighthawks over my building in Philly!