This past year may have felt like it lasted a grueling decade or more, but 2018 only spanned 52 weeks. As usual, we each had the same 52 weekends to make birding magic happen. Now that the last of our allotted weekends has passed, take stock of your birding year. Did you strive, learn, and enjoy in 2018? How will next year’s birding compare to this one?

Corey and I closed out a brilliant year of birding separately by coming together for a quick survey of Pelham Bay Park. While nothing extraordinary appeared, we eked out an excellent sampling of local winter avifauna. Fortunately, my first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker of the year turned up just in time. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was the Common Raven that we heard in the Bronx on Sunday morning as it was a new county bird for Corey, and county ticks are fun.

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. Happy New Year!

Written by Mike
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.