This has been the oddest May migration in memory, at least around upstate New York. The beauty of May, however, is that there are always birds, even if they’re not the ones we expect!
Case in point, songbirds are moving through the Finger Lakes in fits and starts, but beach birds have been out in force, thanks to shockingly low seasonal levels for Lake Ontario. Why else would three new county birds for me–Least Tern, Laughing Gull, and White-faced Ibis–all turn up at the same place alongside other rarities? What a spring this has been! Corey got out and about in Queens early Saturday morning, following up on a report of a singing Chuck-Will’s-Widow, which would have been a new Queens bird for Corey if it sang for him. It did not. Instead, his Best Bird of the Weekend was a Black Tern offshore in the Rockaways, his first in Queens in quite some time.
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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Asian Fairy-Bluebird