1 Year Since the Webmaster's 'Best Day Birding'
Update
An update on fall migration has been posted at this link: www.birdsofohio.webnode.com/news/fall-bird-migration-at-its-peak/
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It has been exactly one year since my 'Best Day Birding'. The day started just like any other day. I got up, went to church, came back and ate lunch. Directly after lunch I decided to head to the field and get in some bird watching. However, I didn't quite expect the bird watching to be quite so good as it turned out to be. If I remember correctly, I added five new birds to my life list that day, and saw 28 species total, but most of them were new arrivals from the north. Somewhere in the article archives my blog post from the day of the trip is floating around, in which my eBird checklist from that day is also posted. Trust me, in my excitement I just posted a quick update, no proof reading or anything. When I looked at the article later I saw the terrible need for editing, but that task went unaccomplished.
But to return from this digression, I clearly remember returning to the house and thinking to myself, "This was the best bird watching trip that I have ever been on." In all honesty, the only reason I came back from the trip at that time was because I had been birding non-stop for two and a half hours, and I had become to hungry to ignore it any longer. Immediately after I had eaten a quick snack, however, I found myself, camera in hand and binoculars hanging iver my shoulder, walking the trail back to woods to once again begin some serious fall birdwatching. Upon reaching the woods again, I was dissapointed to find that in the short time that I had been gone, the woods, which so short a time before had been ringing with the calls of birds, was now quite quiet, except for the occasional call of a Blue Jay, Cyanocitta cristata, or the chirp of a Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis.
Despite the dissapointment, I would never forget the most wonderful day of bird watching in my life. The day was marked on my calendar so that I would remember to go birding on the same date this year. However, I woke to find the day rainy, cold, and dreary, which leaves me sitting at the table writing drafting this blog post, remembering the day exactly one year ago that I saw such a large collection of birds in so small of an area.