Spring has been coming in fits and starts.  Last weekend I went to Red Butte Garden hoping to get some good bird pictures.  Since it’s at a higher elevation, there was still a lot of snow on the ground so the flowers looked like this.       But there was a lot of bird [...]

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I looked through my pictures from China to find a longer bird for Tiffany.  Behold the White-browed Laughingthrush!       These guys are very common and can be found in several countries.  But they’re shy and therefore hard to photograph.  They like to travel in flocks and they really like foraging on the ground. [...]

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The Hermit Thrush is a smart species because it winters in Costa Rica.  It is unlike those crazy Great-blue Herons that I see here in Utah in the winter trying to get food through the one weak spot in the ice.     It was so weird to see this relatively common bird in Costa [...]

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At Antelope Island last week I saw my first Townsend’s Solitaire.  During the winter they primarily eat cones on the juniper bush.     I was convinced I was looking at a Gray Vireo because of the white eye ring, but a friend of mine pointed out that the buffy wing patch is consistent with [...]

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We have Mountain Bluebirds in Utah but I’ve only seen them in the mountains and I don’t have any great pictures of them.  Their cousins, the Eastern Bluebirds are very common in South Carolina and Georgia.  This is the male: Below is the female.  She has a lot more brown on her body.  And the [...]

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I haven’t had a lot of luck birding in Utah lately on the weekends, even on the days when I had time to bird for more than a few minutes, so today I’m switching back to California pictures.  This, I believe, is a Swainson’s Thrush.

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