As always, I’m eager to hear everyone’s weekend birding adventures. Be warned, though, that I just finished this terrific book, so your stories better be good!

I did make it to Montezuma NWR as promised for a veritable wealth of waterfowl, but my BBOTW turned up in the form of a Winter Wren in my local park. Corey decided on a mission this weekend: he would get his Nelson’s Sparrow for the year. Nelson’s Sparrows are only reliably found in Queens in mid-to-late October, when they migrate south: they are usually found in saltmarshes. Dutifully, Corey headed out to Dubos Point, where there is some nice saltmarsh habitat, on Saturday afternoon and lucked into one Nelson’s Sparrow, but he didn’t get great looks. So on Sunday morning he looked at Big Egg Marsh, which has a larger amount of saltmarsh habitat. He didn’t find a Nelson’s so he gave up and went to the East Pond at Jamaica Bay where he hoped to find some late shorebirds. He found some but he also found a Nelson’s Sparrow feeding at the edge of the pond amid the phragmites. That Nelson’s Sparrow, which stayed in sight and allowed relatively close approach, is Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend.

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.

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.