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home about advertise archives birds conservation contact galleries links reviews subscribe Browse: Home / Asides / A First Christmas Bird Count Experience A First Christmas Bird Count Experience By Corey • March 2, 2011 • No comments yet Tweet Share Laura Wright has written an excellent article for onearth about her first Christmas (..)
Of the four new year birds for him the best was one of several Nelson’s Sparrows at Big Egg Marsh, always a great bird to see, and Corey saw several very well as the high tide forced them out of the marsh. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you?
In July 2011 a Henslow’s Sparrow was found in Ames, N.Y., I’m not quite sure where I was at the time, probably working, and it was six more years till I got my state Henslow’s Sparrow at Shawangunk NWR (a shorter drive and a more cooperative bird). a rural area in the eastern-central part of the state.
What I enjoy–almost more than any other moment of my birding year–is that special spring day when White-Crowned Sparrows deign to visit my humble home en route to their boreal breeding grounds. Happily, the sparrows finally arrived this weekend and have strutted around my feeders enough for me to fully admire their beauty.
A late Northern Parula was nice, his first Canvasback of the season was pleasant, and sweeping the scoters is always fun, but his favorite bird of the weekend was an Ipswich Sparrow. Yes, the pale subspecies of Savannah Sparrow is always a cool treat and Corey greatly enjoyed finding one at Breezy Point. What is 10,000 Birds coming to?
Hope Cemetery was much improved by a number of Chipping Sparrows and a single errant baby Snapping Turtle. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. As grumpy as these daily 30-degree temperature swings are making me, you have to wonder how the birds are reacting.
He connected with both, adding Nelson’s Sparrow and Vesper Sparrow for the year. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. Corey had two species he wanted to make sure he saw this weekend because it is their prime migration time and he hadn’t seen either all year.
It’s a rush any new birder experiences: that of every species being a lifer. Once you’ve been around the birding block a few years, your appreciation for the lifer experience deepens greatly. Which is why we all eventually turn to the one way to combine old-birder experience with new-birder opportunities: travel.
eBird) had it that the best place to find Clay-colored Sparrow is a particular conifer plantation on a particular farm road in the rural western portion of the county. The rumors were delightfully true, as that buzzy call from a spruce bough drew my attention to what must be the most boring sparrow on the planet. Rumor (i.e.
The bird was a sparrow, that much was clear, but it didn’t seem to fit any of the easily boxes the other North American sparrows can be fairly easily sorted into. Superficially, it resembled the Black-chinned Sparrow of the southwestern United States with its gray chest and chestnut streaked with black back.
White-throated Sparrows don’t generally stand out unless they turn up at my feeder in sharp plumage, which they did on Sunday. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. At least my summers are mild. What was your best bird of the weekend?
But my experience suggests there is a fair amount of geographical overlap between the two ranges in my area. Its insect-like buzz reminds me most of the Grasshopper’s Sparrow’s song. Yellow Warblers are altitudinal migrants within the state of Michoacán, wintering in the lowlands and summering in the highlands.
But, of them all, his Best Bird of the Weekend was a new one for him for Ulster County, a Lincoln’s Sparrow. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
On Friday morning he unsuccessfully chased a LeConte’s Sparrow and a Connecticut Warbler in Queens but had his second ever encounter with Virginia Rail in Queens as well as a Yellow-breasted Chat. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. What was your best bird of the weekend?
If you read my weekly posts bookending theweekend birding experience, you know that I pay close attention to phenology. The way the ebb and flow of each season impacts out experience of the natural world must inform our efforts to observe avifauna if we want to optimize our experience. How about you?
In this first installment, I will focus on my impressions and experiences in the highlands portion of our tour. The experience of seeing a pair feeding and calling in the mountains of Honduras felt like a much more genuine birding experience to me. Trips Honduran birding La Tigra motmot'
If Mexico City itself was not high enough, the mountains to the south rise above 12,300 feet and I was there looking for a Sierra Madre Sparrow to confirm a sighting of this rare and local sparrow from 15 years ago. Just to let you know, the sparrow did not show and I had to make do with some specialty Mexican warblers instead.
I found the experience of authentically aggressive heat rather refreshing, but much prefer my moderate New York summers! Corey’s best bird of the weekend was a Lark Sparrow , highly unusual at his current coordinates. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you?
Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was a Clay-colored Sparrow at Jacob Riis Park in coastal Queens, the only really noteworthy find among the hordes of sparrows that were around on Saturday morning. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you?
So much for my weekend… Unless you like House Sparrows more than I do, you won’t be impressed by my best bird of the weekend. Corey, on the other hand, pulled a Philadelphia Vireo that Will Raup spotted at the Coxsackie Creek Grasslands Preserve while Corey was busy looking at a Song Sparrow.
My experience of just half of the Week Competition of this year’s gtbc utterly drained me. However, even that didn’t stop me from noticing that the American Tree Sparrows at my mother-in-law’s feeders have given way to cute little chippies; a Chipping Sparrow here signals spring even when the weather still says winter!
Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was his only year bird that crossed his path, a nice Clay-colored Sparrow at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
In honor of fall, and of the Chipping Sparrow that just smacked itself (thankfully not too hard) against my balcony window, here’s a blast from the past: Oct. Or was I, like so many birders, doomed to eternal restlessness, always investing somewhere else with the glamor of new birds and new experiences? Could I go home again?
A juvenile White-crowned Sparrow is an expected bird in late fall in New York State but it is always nice when one sits still for a digiscoping session. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How did you fare? What was your best bird of the weekend? Birding best bird weekend'
From atop a terrific sledding hill, I enjoyed watching American Tree Sparrows lend class and native charm to flocks of House Sparrows. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. Hope you enjoyed at least part of the excitement! What was your best bird of the weekend?
Hordes of House Sparrows and Rock Pigeons are more than willing to push you around rather then let you have that choice morsel you just found. Still, the experience of seeing birds so close is hard to match. I sure appreciated this Swamp Sparrow. Once you’ve landed though, you are in a bizarre situation. And the noise!
The Best Bird of my weekend was a partially leucistic House Sparrow that added some flavor to an otherwise drab feeding flock. A February Grasshopper Sparrow in New York is, if not unprecedented, really, really unusual. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you?
Seeing the radio show in CMAC’s splendid open air venue made the experience even more genteel, but the performers had a hard time competing with very vocal American Robins greeting the dusk with song. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment.
The Shoebill serves as the symbol of the magnificent wildlife experiences Uganda offers visitors, which may seem a bit odd. Having finally seen this iconic species, I can assure you that the experience wildly exceeds expectations. After all, the Shoebill isn’t endemic to the country; only Fox’s Weaver currently holds that title.
He added several goodies over the weekend, but none were better than a self-found Lark Sparrow at Fort Tilden, which was easily his Best Bird of the Weekend. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
Luckily, swarms of songbirds arrived on time, including one very handsome Fox Sparrow. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. As promised, I finally made it up to Owl Woods and the Braddock Bay area. Too bad the hawks and owls couldn’t make it too!
There are black-and-white drawings by Aaron Hargrove illustrating some of the birds Marybeth writes about– a Red-shouldered Hawk on a wire eating a garter snake, a Grasshopper Sparrow in a chainlink fence, a staring Burrowing Owl inside a drainage pipe, and a few more.
Instead, the Seaside Sparrows at Gardiner County Park, one of which is above, is Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend because cooperative Ammodramus sparrows are awesome. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
My only other experience with an Audubon Club field trip anywhere, on a cold October morning in the American Midwest, was frankly kind of a bust. But this one was a wonderful experience. This one was a Song Sparrow. We went to Woodside’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, and a restricted-access section, at that.
Birding the Dry Tortugas in late April has always been high on my bucket-list of the best birding experiences in North America. Day-trips to the Dry Tortugas are of course possible but the best way to experience the islands is on an extended 3-day guided tour. That means I used to be very young. Almost infantile.
Corey can’t choose between three choice sparrows spotted in Queens. Then again, anyone would struggle selecting from Lark , Vesper , and Nelson’s Sparrow. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. What was your best bird of the weekend?
Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was a very sharp Lincoln’s Sparrow at Edgemere Preserve in Queens. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend? Birding best bird weekend'
Around this time of year, I keep an eye out for White-throated Sparrows landing around my home… they were right on time! If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. Nature lovers can’t help but get out and enjoy one of the most crisp and colorful times of year.
My most recent outing netted me three new species for my Hudson County list – Nelson’s Sparrow , Blackpoll Warbler , and Golden-crowned Kinglet. Nelson’s Sparrow - two of them! Nelson’s Sparrow is a worthy addition to any county list. I did appreciate this Song Sparrow though.
He can’t decide between Connecticut Warbler and Clay-colored Sparrow for best bird for the weekend, since both are new Queens birds for him. They beat out Yellow-billed Cuckoo , Blue Grosbeak , Ring-necked Pheasant , Lark Sparrow , and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. That makes for 283 on ye olde Queens life list.
But of all the species he spotted he felt either of the two Grasshopper Sparrows at Kissena Park in Queens was his Best Bird of the Weekend. After all, the two birds doubled his total number of Grasshopper Sparrow sightings in his home borough! How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
Because this is New Guinea, it does not attract t**s, finches, and sparrows, but parrots and birds-of-paradise… as soon as a fresh load of papayas and bananas is brought out and thrown on the table, the forest comes alive.” My Big Year is such a succession of new experiences that there is simply no time to think of other things.
Thankfully, American Tree Sparrows thrive under these brutal conditions and provided terrific views throughout the weekend. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. So much love! What was your best bird of the weekend? Birding best bird weekend'
Though Corey originally picked a Field Sparrow at Edgemere Preserve (like the one pictured above) as his Best Bird of the Weekend, an afternoon outing with his family back to Edgemere Preserve so Desi could chase after crickets and grasshoppers led to his revised Best Bird of the Weekend, a fortuitous find. How about you?
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