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Category: Nature

Great Backyard Bird Count – Day 2

February 16, 2008 • • Leave a comment

For Day 2 of The Great Backyard Bird Count, I actually did count birds in my backyard, plus a few in the front.

It was one of those cold gray drizzly days that become a perfect reason for not going anywhere and instead staying in making French onion soup. Over the course of the day from about 7:30 to 4:00, I watched for birds. Here’s what I saw and reported:

  • 2 Bewick’s wrens
  • 2 Mourning doves
  • 6 White-winged doves
  • 1 Ladder-backed woodpecker
  • 13 House sparrows
  • 12 Chipping sparrows
  • 1 Carolina chickadee

That’s most of the usual suspects for this time of year, except for the black-crested titmouse who must have had better things to do than eat soggy seed in the rain.

I actually saw more birds, but you’re only supposed to count the greatest number of individuals seen together at one time. If I kept count of every time I saw a house sparrow or a white-winged dove sitting around by himself, the counts would be much higher. And I’d be watching for Hitchcock to show up.

Great Backyard Bird Count – Day 1

February 15, 2008 • • 2 Comments

No, that’s not my backyard.

The Audubon Society and The Cornell Lab of Ornithology are sponsoring The Great Backyard Bird Count running from today through Feb 18. Anyone can participate. All you have to do is count birds over a span of at least 15 minutes and record the number of individuals you see. This helps the Audubon Society “create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent.” You don’t even have to do it in your backyard.

I walked down to the pond by the house and watched birds from 4:05-4:35 pm. Overcast, breezy, mid-60’s. Here’s what I saw:

  • 3 American crows
  • 3 Northern shovelers
  • 1 White-winged dove
  • 2 Mourning doves
  • 1 Lesser scaup
  • 1 Great blue heron
  • 4 Black vultures
  • 1 Eastern phoebe

The phoebe and the scaup are ones I had not seen before, so I get to add a few to my life list.

Donner Summit

January 17, 2008 • • Leave a comment

I took this on Donner Summit near Truckee, California while there in June 2006. There’s something peaceful about this little alpine lake even if it is right off the I-80 access road.

Photography is all selection. I get in the moment, frame the shot, and everything outside the frame falls away. Usually forever.

When I return to a familiar site, those unshot surroundings are always a surprise, unknown and alien.

Birdride

December 20, 2007 • • Leave a comment

Today was a beautiful day for a ride. The sky was clearÂwinter blue with temps in the 70’s and a constant chill breeze making it seem even milder. The sweet warm smell of cedar was thick on the air along the trails. So glad I don’t get cedar fever.

As I rode, I watched a ghostly pale moon slowly climb the afternoon sky, and I decided to count birds species as I did last June on the day after the Summer Solstice.

That day, I saw 20 birds on a 20 mile ride. Today, two days before the first day of winter, I saw 8 birds in 14 miles:

Turkey Vulture… circling lazy, selecting from a veritable buffet of dead deer along the road

Black Vulture… three circling, as lackadaisical as their cousins

Common Grackle… swarming the parking lot at HEB

Great-tailed Grackle… also at HEB, but looking more regal in their iridescent purple than the common ones

American Coot… paddling the lake

Mockingbird… cut fast across the trail and away to the trees

Mallard… a small flock kicking it in a secluded bend in the creek shielded by cedar

American Crow… exploded from a tree on the edge of a meadow, caw-cawing in angry circles as I rode below

It was a good day for the black birds.

Chipping Sparrow

December 11, 2007 • • Leave a comment

The chipping sparrows came back a few weeks ago when it first started to feel like fall. This guy let me get pretty close. He looks a bit different from the ones I shot last spring, but those were in their breeding plummage.

They left back in March about a week after I first started paying attention so I’ve been waiting to see when they would show back up. I’m glad they found us again.

I just wish I could white balance a little more consistently.

Red-tailed Hawk

December 5, 2007 • • 4 Comments

Yesterday we had one of those bracing cold mornings. The sky was a crisp blue, and frost covered many of the fields along the highway. It’s the kind of morning that seems to bring out the birds of prey.

I see this red-tailed hawk on many of the cold mornings on my way to work. Except when I have my camera. Yesterday, though, I had the camera, and there was the bird, chillin’ on the pole.

I pulled over and shot a few frames from the car before he flew off. I should have driven past him and shot back so the sun would be behind me. I wouldn’t have had to dodge him as much to bring out the detail on his wings. Next time I’ll try not to be so excited about the bird so I can give just a bit more thought to the photography.

They are magnificant creatures, though. It’s easy to just watch the bird and forget the machine in my hands.

I drove on to work, part of me wishing I had his job…

Waiting for a Gust of Wind

November 27, 2007 • • Leave a comment

Look up—endlessness and open sky
Naked leafless lungs break blue infinity
Ghosts of birds sing springtime memories
Imagine them in the trees, though all around is endings—
Dying leaves, new spiders’ eggs and spider’s dead decay…
Remember that hummingbird released from a spider’s web?
Up from my hand, he raced straight to South America
Look up—wait for one last gust of wind

Mallard and Some Mystery Ducks

November 15, 2007 • • Leave a comment

I’m trying to identify the ducks that are suddenly showing up now that it’s getting cold up north. I finally managed to ID the mystery ducks that spent last winter on the pond near the house when they came back this year. It was easy to figure it out, once I realized they weren’t ducks, but were American Coots.

The other day, I rode down to a small lake near the house and saw these guys cruising along in the fading light.

The one in the back is a mallard, but I don’t know what the two ducks in front of him are. There were a few female mallards farther ahead, out of frame, but these aren’t female mallards.

Any duck experts out there want to help me out?