Even More of Your Birds of the Week

Birds! Birds! Birds! Birds! Birds! Birds! Birds! Birds!!!!!!!!!

Jack Mirkinson

Apr 8, 2022

It’s time for another reader edition of Bird of the Week!!! As you may know, we asked you to send in your favorite birds, and a ton of you responded—so many that we couldn’t fit all of the recommendations into one post. So here we are again, with another batch of your awesome birds! (As I said last time, don’t worry if you don’t see your bird here—that just means I’m saving it for a future post.) These birds are very different from each other but similar in a very important way: they rule!!!

A reminder: you can find the complete list of birds we’ve featured so far here. And please keep sending us bird nominations at hello@discourseblog.com.

Thick-Billed Murre

“Last weekend I could not believe I saw this bird at Jones Beach, probably a quarter-mile out in the water. At first, I thought it was a penguin floating offshore with the long-tailed ducks. But they do sometimes show up around the NY area this time of year. TBMs apparently have the least sense of ‘personal space,’ dive over 200 meters into arctic waters, and can stay under for 3 or more minutes.” — Terry Hope Romero

Piping Plover

“They come to Queens every year to nest and it's a good bird, just a lil bitty round guy that scurries along on the beach and then even tinier lil guys emerge from their eggs, but they're endangered :( If you go to Jacob Riis/Fort Tilden or Rockaway Beach (or I assume other beaches on the Atlantic) and those random-seeming ropes are up, those are the lil buds they're trying to keep you from disturbing.” — Helen Bolton

Southern Ground Hornbill

“I’m currently in the middle of an internship as a bird keeper at my local zoo! Can you please feature Southern Ground Hornbills? They are super cool and I love the ones we have at my job! They are a fan favorite to everyone who comes to the zoo!” — Emma Bowers

Cedar Waxwings

“Cedar waxwings are incredibly cute birds with yellow and red highlights that know how to party hard getting berry, berry drunk (sorry) and get the cops called on them all the time. I fell in love with these birds when I was young and helped nurse a sauced adult after it flew directly into a massive spruce tree. They have no song, just a high-pitched whistle. They are the woo girls of bird-kind.” — Kristen R

(Note: to learn more about cedar waxwings, read our interview with Ryan Mandelbaum. Kristen’s note was so great that we couldn’t resist giving these birds a second plug.)