This is a terrible shot but the only time I've seen a Ferruginous Hawk. They're huge!

#birdoftheday #RareEncounter

Photo of a chestnut-sided warbler bird perched on bare stalk.

Here's a case where this chestnut-sided #warbler is also a #RareEncounter for #BirdOfTheDay. It's my only warbler photo, from Nov 2024 in Cape May, NJ.

#CapeMay #JerseyShore #Photography #NaturePhotography #Birds #Nikon #DSLR #LightroomClassic #PhotographersOfBluesky #PhotographersUnited

#BirdoftheDay #Birding #Birdphotography This Blackburnian #Warblers also counts as a #RareEncounter for me. On Spring migration at Magee Marsh.

A small duck with a gray-to-tan body and a dark-brown head with a deep green stripe is standing at water's edge. Above the duck's head is a very small wading bird, tan at the top of its body with a white chest.

Here's a green-winged teal at Cochise Lake in Willcox, Arizona, last week. That isn't a #RareEncounter, but the snowy plover just above his head definitely is. A fellow birder let me know that the plovers, out of their typical migration and breeding range, were there. #BirdOfTheDay #Birds #Arizona

An ash throated flycatcher sits in a bush singing.

I hear ash-throated flycatchers often enough, but seeing one and capturing it makes for a #RareEncounter. #BirdOftheDay #photography #birds

I see this guy often as he hunts the many squirrels in my yard. Successfully getting a shot of him makes this a #RareEncounter for me.
(Poor squirrel)

#BirdOfTheDay #EastCoastKin #BirdPhotography #SharpShinnedHawk

I was thinking about how I'm excited, but not THAT excited by this weeks space mission, surely I should be hanging on every second? But then this is not my first Moon rodeo, I have vivid memories when I was 10yrs old of the excitement of the first moon landing, staying awake for as long as I could overnight hiding under the covers so my parents couldn't hear my radio (of course they knew what I was doing but were happy to indulge the added excitement of the secrecy) and smuggling the radio into school, a select group of nerdy kids all now sitting at the back of the class each with a radio covered by a jumper pinned to our ears (of course our teacher knew what we were doing but was happy to indulge the independent enthusiasm of discovery - she probably had a radio in her desk 😄) No longer a school girl I don't think we should be attempting to colonise outer space, we should be putting our efforts into keeping the amazing planet we already have habitable for all nature, but the science, resource, intelligence and effort that has gone into sending humans into space is still incredible and exciting and the benefits of that all that learning, much now decades old still reaches far into our current lives. Now....back to the live tracker....... Photo of an Imperial Shag - a large Black and white bird with pink feet - landing on what looks like a barren piece of land but is infact an area of last years nests. It is vertically upright - its feet in a flat position for landing and its neck bent with its eyes and beak pointing downwards to spot the exact place

Imperial Shag #FalklandIslands

Eat your heart out #NASA I have perfected the perfect vertical moon landing.
I was thinking about how I'm excited about the #Moon mission but ... #TheCampfire story in Alt

#BirdOfTheDay #RareEncounter (for me - lifer) #birds #BirdsSeenIn2026 #EastCoastKin #ArtYear

Another #RareEncounter was this Green Sandpiper from yesterday.
It’s a lifer…
#BirdOfTheDay 🪶