birding, photography and living with pet birds
Posted in conservation on Aug 31st, 2011
The garden is doing really well. Too well actually. The tomatoes grew so large and so heavy that the cages started to topple over. Of course, this is one of the problems with planting in raised beds – the dirt isn’t solid enough for the cages to properly grip. So I had to put tent [...]
Posted in warbler on Aug 28th, 2011
During our trip to Arizona, I probably saw 20 different warblers. A lot of warblers and flycatchers aren’t particularly remarkable because their feathers are grey and they don’t even have distinctive eye rings. But they sure are cute. This is a Lucy’s Warbler. He’s completely unremarkable except for a tawny crown. I was a little [...]
Posted in finch on Aug 26th, 2011
Female house finches are really good at tricking you into thinking you have a more interesting bird like a Pine Siskin. She really enjoyed those berries. Some people only want to find rare birds and I do get excited by finding new birds, but I can also appreciate an opportunity to take nice photographs. The [...]
Posted in random on Aug 24th, 2011
Last weekend Jon’s parents were visiting and so we took them up to the Timpanogos Caves. The walk to the cave is a bit intense with an over 1,000 ft elevation gain in 1.5 miles, but it’s completely worth the hike. In the picture below you can see the entrance to the cave. From the [...]
Posted in songbird on Aug 21st, 2011
It took me the longest time to see my first Grey Catbird. I’ve heard them, but not seen them. As the name suggests, these birds meow like cats. Last summer Jon got pictures of them while I was somewhere else and I completely missed the bird! But finally on July 9th, I saw him! He [...]
Posted in tyrant flycatcher on Aug 19th, 2011
I’ve seen a lot of Western Kingbirds around Salt Lake City and Farmington this year. I even found a kingbird nest. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the bird on the nest, but I didn’t stay long because he was agitated and I don’t mess with nesting birds. I kept going back to [...]
Posted in thrasher on Aug 14th, 2011
Turning back to Arizona for a post, I saw my first thrasher while we were there. These guys are easy to identify with their call, which is a “whit-whit.” They’ll answer you back if you make the call. The thrasher woke me up one morning starting with his call at four in the morning. It’s [...]
Posted in corvid on Aug 11th, 2011
There is one place in Utah where I have without fail always seen at least one Black-billed Magpie: Red Butte Garden. They like the trees and I think they prefer the higher elevations. In the past week, the magpies have been hanging out in my neighborhood. This guy was peeling the pain off of my [...]
Posted in random on Aug 9th, 2011
I discovered a fantastic blog called Sweet Juniper and I’ve been slowly making my way through the archives. The author, Jim, and his wife moved to Detroit from San Francisco a few years ago with their daughter. Jim has the most amazing series of pictures of abandoned houses in Detroit – he calls them feral [...]
Posted in owl on Aug 8th, 2011
I mentioned a few weeks ago that we saw Burrowing Owls on a birding trip at Antelope Island. During that trip we also saw buffalo, a porcupine, antelope and a coyote. Jon took the most awesome picture of the coyote passing in front of an antelope. This was one of those trips where you need [...]