Birding

Best Bird of the Weekend (Third of July 2020)

July 20, 2020 by Mike 3 Comments

One of the abundant ancillary benefits of identifying as a birder must be the commitment to the highest quality optics possible… or, at least, affordable. When bird activity flags, we can focus our bins and scopes on various other flora and fauna, as well as celestial bodies under the right conditions. Did anyone get a good look at Comet NEOWISE this weekend?

By the time I realized locals were enjoying excellent comet views, the Great Lakes were shrouded under cloudy skies. On the plus side, I wrangled some nice bird sightings along the lake, the best of which was surely a Wilson’s Snipe that my wife spotted before I did. Corey didn’t bird very much at all this weekend but he did end up visiting his folks in a socially distant way. While eating out in the backyard he was pleased to hear a Black-billed Cuckoo, easily 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.

best bird 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.

3 Comments

Michael Ayers July 20, 2020 at 4:25 am

Little Ringed Plover
EDWARD PULLEN July 20, 2020 at 10:53 am

For me it was a threesome of first of the year birds all at once, unexpectedly. My girlfriend wanted to see a Yellow-headed Blackbird, so I took her to an area in Othello where they are regular. Unfortunately the males were in heavy molt, and had just a shadow of their usual yellow heads, but while watching them we saw several male Tricolored Blackbirds, 8 Lesser Yellowlegs, and a Pectoral Sandpiper feeding on the water edge. FOr me the highlight of the past week though by far was having Dr Dennis Paulson, auther of Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest, Shorebirds of North America, and the U.S. Premier Dragonfly expert on The Bird Banter Podcast a guest. It was a real thrill to get time to talk with him. You can hear on all the popular podcast feeds, or by using the link on my name wiith this comment. Good birding!
Simon Tickle July 23, 2020 at 6:50 am

Caught a stunning look at the comet from the aircraft. We were a long way north and way above the atmospheric interference, so it was an eye-catching object even from a lit cabin.
Subsequent views from the ground were quite disappointing.