Weekends are much like birds, in that some are more prosaic than others. Not all can be stunners or megas. Were we to ascribe to weekends the taxonomy of birds, our days would likely resemble our lists: for every resplendent songbird or wild raptor would be ten ordinary gulls or pigeons, interesting in their own rights but hardly worth raving about.

But gulls can inspire excitement too. Corey and I both landed interesting larids this weekend. I finally found one of those Lesser Black-backed Gulls I’ve been chasing all winter, a worthy replacement for the rare geese I hoped to find at Braddock Bay’s North Marina. Corey spent a half-day on Sunday with his friend Seth doing a dry run for his “Waterfowl in Queens” challenge. They found twenty-four species of ducks, geese, and swans, not bad for a half-day. But Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was incidental, non-waterfowl find along the way, an Iceland Gull at Jacob Riis Park. He’d share a photo but his computer has died leaving him with a camera full of images and nothing to download them to.

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.