In principle, weekends should generally improve upon what the everyday work week has to offer. In practice, though, some weekends are just more awesome than others. The third weekend of July always ranks among the best of my year and this one was no exception. In fact, I’m about ready to drop from exhaustion because of the 14th annual Chicken Inferno; here’s why…

Details about the event will come later in the week, but for now I’ll tag Eastern Meadowlark as my Best Bird of the Weekend. While I’m used to most of the birds of farm and field in Potter County, PA, meadowlarks have mostly eluded me there until now.  Corey didn’t get out birding at all this weekend because he instead was squiring his nieces around New York City. A visit to the South Street Seaport did enable to see a few birds on the East River, among them a Common Tern. Being an eBird addict, Corey entered an “incidental” checklist into eBird and was pleased to learn that it was his first-ever Common Tern in Manhattan and therefore his 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.

And just because we’re not ready to give up on sharing photos of adorable baby birds just yet, here are some baby Eastern Phoebes I encountered this weekend…

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.