birding, photography and living with pet birds
Posted in shorebirds on Nov 16th, 2012
On my last trip to Pescadero, I saw Snowy Plovers. They look like a lot of other plovers in their non-breeding plumage, but no less adorable. There were two of them on the beach and they were extremely suspicious of me. Their numbers are diminishing because they breed along the coastal [...]
Posted in shorebirds on Oct 26th, 2012
This morning I took a flight from Oakland to Salt Lake City and I had to get up at 3:50am. I’m so incredibly tired. I was supposed to have five hours of meetings starting Thursday morning, but it didn’t work out and I had the day free. So I stayed in Pescadero, CA overnight. [...]
Posted in shorebirds, songbird on Aug 26th, 2012
Years ago I saw an American Pipit in Northern California. I think it was in San Mateo. I’m really surprised that I didn’t post about it because I think the shots were pretty decent. But good pictures with that old lens aren’t as good as the 500mm lens pictures I took in the Uintas earlier [...]
Posted in shorebirds on Jul 15th, 2012
Yesterday we had some unexpected excitement. Jon was on our porch and saw a cat stalking something. He realized that it was a duck and her little babies. We live in a residential neighborhood in the middle of two busy streets so the ducks couldn’t stay there. I grabbed a box and scooped [...]
Posted in shorebirds on Jun 24th, 2012
We went to Antelope Island last Sunday and I still have nasty itchy welts from these horribly flies that stung every time they bit me. I truly suffered because I wanted to get some good shots of the Wilson’s Pharalope. There were thousands of pharalopes on the causeway. By the way, the lens [...]
Posted in shorebirds on May 19th, 2012
You guys, I have been so sick since yesterday. I threw up. I haven’t thrown up since we lived in California and that was the result of a wild night of having three glasses of wine. The last time I threw up due to sickness was in law school and that was due to the [...]
Posted in shorebirds on Nov 13th, 2011
We had a large span of time this year where the avocets graced our presence. I first saw them on April 30th, but they could have come much earlier because I spent the previous weeks away from large water bodies. This picture nicely illustrates why they’re called the blue-legged bird. American Avocets breed in Utah [...]
Posted in shorebirds on Sep 23rd, 2011
Most of Farmington Bay is behind a gate that they close off during breeding season. When I visited last weekend they opened it back up again. And I’m so glad that they did because I got to see grebes! These are Western Grebes because the black feathers are underneath their eyes. Clark’s Grebes only have [...]
Posted in shorebirds on Jun 24th, 2011
In Arizona I captured herons creating a rookery. We saw them on the last day of our trip. Our guide, Matt Brown was trying to get us pictures of the Zone-tailed Hawk. I think we’re different from typical birders because while I was excited about the hawk, I was more interested in these fantastic pictures [...]
Posted in shorebirds on Dec 12th, 2010
I haven’t had a Snowy Egret post in awhile. How many egrets can you spot in this picture? There are also some Black-Necked Stilts on the left. This was taken in Palo Alto, CA. We have Snowy Egrets in Utah, but you’ll typically only see one or two together. If I were an egret I [...]