birding, photography and living with pet birds
Posted in sparrow on Aug 12th, 2012
In the Uintas, I saw a very common bird in an unusual situation: the White-crowned Sparrow bathing. Birds really take joy when they’re bathing. I’m still taking Stonewall into the shower and he gets so excited! This guy was equally excited to bathe right after a rainstorm. My favorite pictures are [...]
Posted in sparrow on Jul 22nd, 2012
This is the best photo that I took in New Hampshire. I thought he was an American Tree Sparrow until a friend of mine said her place is surrounded by Chipping Sparrows. Well! It turns out that they look extremely similar because they both have rufous caps and lines through their eyes. The [...]
I did it! I bought the Nikon 500mm lens. I will not be buying anything else for a very long time. So as the first example of why it’s better to buy this lens over others, I’ve taken pictures of sparrows at my feeder from the same distance with the same camera body (Nikon d300s) [...]
Posted in sparrow on May 8th, 2012
There is a fantastic sushi restaurant downtown called Takashi that I visited last Friday. As soon as we walked up to the building I could hear the baby House Finches. This picture is so funny because someone put up a piece of cardboard with nails in it to discourage the birds from nesting. So they [...]
Posted in sparrow on Mar 24th, 2012
You know what’s a weird sign to see when you’re birding? Fort Huachuaca (pronounced wa-chuke-a) in Arizona is close enough to the Mexican border that people will try and get into the United States through that area. Another thing you can find at Fort Huachuca and everywhere else in southern Arizona is the Chipping Sparrow. [...]
Posted in sparrow on Nov 8th, 2011
Thank you for all the comments. Audrey was greatly loved. Conner is having a hard time dealing with the loss but he’s slowly getting better. Trevor knows that we’re all sad and is trying to comfort Conner. But I don’t want to go into details now. I want to talk about something happier. Onto Lake [...]
Posted in sparrow on Oct 30th, 2011
There is a section of Utah that everyone is supposed to travel when the leaves change called the Alpine Loop. The views are spectacular. If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I don’t know about Utah. I bet it’s all a desert.” You would be wrong. I’m really starting to love the Aspen trees. I also [...]
Posted in sparrow on Sep 7th, 2011
The air in Utah is very dry. During the winter we run a humidifier every day so that my skin isn’t constantly itchy and the birds’ feathers stay nice and sleek. The air is so dry that instead of air conditioners some people have swamp coolers. Swamp coolers cool the air by releasing water vapor. [...]
Sorry I didn’t post over the weekend. I was deathly ill. I can’t even remember the last time I was this sick. So sick I couldn’t work let alone do something fun like write a blog post. Instead I stayed in bed shivering and coughing. . But a few weeks ago I made it to [...]
Posted in sparrow on Feb 27th, 2011
White-crowned Sparrows are very common in Utah in the winter. I usually hear them before I see them. Cornell’s bird page has an audio clip and the last three seconds are consistent with the noise I’m always hearing. In the picture above the bird on the left is a juvenile. The juveniles don’t have white [...]