Category: Wildlife

Just Me and My Peeps

Well, at least I was strong out of the gate this month. Unfortunately, things have slowed down a bit as of late due to massive amounts of spring cleaning taking place around the house. Cleaning brought a bonus with it this year. Linda was continually making comments regarding my Halloween Lab still sitting in the middle of our newly remodeled basement. Personally, I think this is a fabulous place for animatronics construction, but I can see her point – it has been there pretty much since last August. Decided it was best to heed the warnings and cleaned out the small room previously used for the remodeling staging. I must say it looks pretty nice and might put a project post on it when I get time – expecting big things now from the evil depths of the new lab! Knowing my readers have been waiting patiently, decided it would be prudent to dust the cobwebs off the blog.

Say hello to my little feathered friend.
Birding Texas November 2013
Want to spend a day nose deep in reference books, try to ID a non-breeding adult shorebird. You have to admire the experts in this field since they basically ALL look alike – at least to me. For starters, I usually check the regions to see if there can be any narrowing there. This particular specimen was taken at Galveston, Texas back in Nov 2013. Well that did little to narrow the field since the Texas Gulf is a favored stomping ground for all the Peep breeds..
Birding Texas November 2013

Hit the jump to find out what this Peep is!

Continue reading Just Me and My Peeps

The Ugly Duckling

We are hot out of the chemicals today! Over the weekend I was able to power through a few more months of back processing in the digital darkroom. For those keeping track (and I know you are), I am officially only 23 months behind on my photography queue. May not seem like much, but that represents a lot of work on this end – combing through thousands of shots each month, picking out good candidates, processing them in Lightroom and Photoshop and then deciding which ones are worthy enough to put on display to the public. Notice I didn’t say “pretty” enough to put on display!?! That’s because there are posts like this one …
Muscovy Duck shot in Ft Myers in March 2015
that just might frighten my readers. Some creatures just ran out of luck when it came to the cuteness DNA gene. Take for example the Sloth or the Blobfish. I guess if you are going to put things in perspective, the Blobfish is clearly the winner of the least likely to get invited to a prom award. Clearly there is at least one creature for everyone or we wouldn’t have the ability to even view such oddities.
Muscovy Duck shot in Ft Myers in March 2015

Hit the jump to see a few more varieties of this intriguing duck

Continue reading The Ugly Duckling

Book Recollection: 51 Birding Tips

Good Birders Don't Wear White - Lisa WhiteTurns out February was a very good month for getting through my reading queue. This is the first of no less than 4 books that had all their pages perused and turned. Granted one of these books was for pleasure only – a rarity since I like to try and get something out of my time spent with an author. One of the books covered war photography and the other two had a bird theme. We’ll get to the other three books soon enough, but let’s start with one of the bird related ones. Today’s featured recollection is about a book entitled Good Birders Don’t Wear White with a subtitle of 50 Tips from North America’s Top Birders. This sounded intriguing when it came up on an Amazon search for something else I was looking for. Ended up adding it to my wish list which Linda used for a birthday gift. Unfortunately, she purchased two of them accidentally thanks to a shopping cart snafu. Rather than bother with returning it, my brother Ron ended up getting some extra reading material. There were big expectations now that it essentially cost us double – Ron, don’t read this review if you had your heart set on reading it.

The format of the book is a series of magazine like articles from a number of well known birders (and a bunch of others I probably should know based on their bios at the end of each article). Each author is given 4 to 7 pages or so to bestow pearls of birding wisdom on the reader. The book is actually very short so each is a quick read which worked out perfectly for my pre-sleep reading material. Take in a few different authors and hit the lights to be ready for the next day’s grind.
Edited by Lisa White. It didn’t take long to get through the 261 pages – each tip is a fairly easy read but the real speed element was a result of content – felt like I was rushing through it to actually get a tip that wasn’t obvious or trivial. As far as 50 tips go, it should have been titled 4 good tips buried in a sea of words. Maybe I’ve just been birding too long and the experiences and knowledge has built up more than I thought – would be interesting to see how a new person to the birding world would take to this advice. As noted, there were a few good nuggets like recommending you buy a Duck Stamp to help out conservation efforts, pishing to draw birds out of brush and confirmation that talking to people about birding is a good thing (take that Linda!). However, these are countered with a multitude of tips ranging from the absurd (cranking bird songs through your car stereo) to the insane (recommending I sketch a bird in the field when I have a perfectly good camera with me). In summary, I will add a 51st tip – if you have spare time to read a book related to birding, spend that valuable time with another product – something like Arthur Morris’ book reviewed last time (link here).

You can see some of the takeaways for this book below after the jump, but all in all, this was a disappointment.

Continue reading Book Recollection: 51 Birding Tips

A Sly Red at Red Rocks

Apparently just changing whether it was a +1 or not is not sufficient to officially characterize my last post as bringing you something “different” – as in something other than a bird post. I base this on the number of emails that showed up from my loyal readers essentially stating changing whether it was a +1 or not “is not something different”. I can take a subtle hint (okay, maybe it wasn’t that subtle). As a form of appeasement, I officially bring you something that isn’t related to a bird. Instead, today’s feature is likely something that would EAT a bird given the opportunity.
Amphitheatre
Decided to do a quick check and sure enough, Foxes do eat birds so we can dispense with the likely. I must admit, that my bird knowledge far outweighs my Fox expertise. To the best of my knowledge bolstered by a healthy dose of Google searches, this specimen is a Red Fox. I was also able to find a few shots on the web that had the dark leg markings. That feature was confusing me a bit since our local Foxes do not seem to display that amount of darkness. The other interesting feature can be seen in the hindquarters.
Amphitheatre

Hit the jump to read a bit more about this encounter!

Continue reading A Sly Red at Red Rocks

Why So Blue Woody?

So far it has been a pretty productive blogging effort this March. Think this is my third post and the month is only 5 days old! Truth be told, there was a slight lull in my daily grind with the recent neck surgery which put a hold on my run training schedule. This gave a lot of extra time to work up images ahead of time – that is the most time consuming part of this little enterprise. Fortunately, that lull is over now and I’m back to pounding the pavement every other day (today put in 10 miles, but need to start pushing it – race season commences mid April and losing 13 days because of the stitches didn’t help). While the legs rest for a bit thought it would be a good time to exercise the fingers and pound out a post (never hurts to get ahead of the self-imposed blogging quota).

Since I led this month with two back to back bird posts, figured it was about time to go with something different…
Steller's Jay shot in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado in May 2014
Ummm, well admittedly that is another bird, but it is different! This time it is not a new bird on my birding list. See, completely different. The Steller’s Jay already debuted on my blog 8 years back (link here) It is quite shocking to think I am in my 10th year of blogging – where has the time gone? The time not spent running that is ha. Like the previous time, this Steller’s was shot in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado back in May 2014. If you live in the heartland (or fly over country for the coasters) like me, you are going to have to make your way out west if you want to have a chance to see these rather cool looking birds. Probably a good thing for our birds seeing how intimidating these Jays look in person – might give our local birds a complex.
Steller's Jay shot in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado in May 2014

Hit the jump to see a few more images of the Steller’s and maybe learn some interesting facts.

Continue reading Why So Blue Woody?

A Lazi Bunting

How are doing today everyone? I thought I would follow up my last birding post with a slacker Bunting, yes, quite the “Lazi” Bunting (hey, I heard that groan all the way over here!).
Lazuli Bunting shot at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Colorado May 2014
That loyal readers is called a Lazuli Bunting. Like the last post on the Phainopepla, this Bunting also represents a new check in my North American Bird List. Starting to get a respectable number now in a desperate attempt to keep up with my brother Ron’s tallies. I have benefited significantly from his recent introduction into the bird blogging arena – you may not be aware, but we have a birding rule between us that doesn’t allow us to count a new bird on our lists unless we have posted about it first on our blogs. Don’t feel sorry for him though, he was properly warned before taking on this new responsibility. These last two posts alone would put me at 2/3rds of his new (post blog) bird count heheheh.
Lazuli Bunting shot at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Colorado May 2014

Hit the jump to see and read more about this shoot!

Continue reading A Lazi Bunting

Latin for Damn Evil

Well folks, it is a new month. Anyone that has been around this blog for a while know that means the post quota counter on the wall gets reset to ZERO. It is a bitter sweet event. It brings with it the personal satisfaction of completing another successful month of blogging but it also means four more weeks of fretting about getting new material out to my loyal readers. However, this time I am in a very good position – drum roll please …. thanks to a lot of hours in front of this computer I can announce the image queue has been trimmed to January 2016. That’s right, this photographer is now only a bit more than 2 years behind (champagne for all). Takes a lot of pressure off when you easily have 2 year’s worth of post material just waiting to be introduced into the world. Let’s get to it shall we!?!
Phainopepla shot at Corn Creek on edge of Mojave Desert, Nevada in December 2014

So we all know the old saying, March comes in like an evil demon and exits like a cute and cuddly baby chick. In honor of it actually being March (you’d almost think I plan this stuff out), thought it would be fitting to feature …well… an evil demon of a bird. I’ll be honest with you, today’s featured bird scares the crap out of me. It scared me with I was looking through the glass when the pictures were taken, it creeped me out when I was processing the pictures in the digital dark room and looking at it right now makes me want to go find my childhood plush dog, grab a carpet square and ball up like a baby on my den floor. In case you are wondering my constant toy as kid was a golden colored Snoopy looking stuffed toy named Henry (don’t laugh, but I still have it sitting on the top shelf of my closet). Wow, how did I get on this…back to demon spawn.

Phainopepla shot at Corn Creek on edge of Mojave Desert, Nevada in December 2014

Hit the jump to find out what this crested specimen is.

Continue reading Latin for Damn Evil

Crown Me

Currently, I’m sitting here grounded from running thanks to recent neck surgery.  Good news for you though, since that gives me more time to post – yeah!

Getting right to it.. meet Mr. Golden

Golden-Crowned Kinglet shot in Jubilee State Park April 2014

Pretty cute eh!?! This Golden-Crowned Kinglet was shot back in April of 2014. Yes, I’m waaay behind, but slowly coming to terms with my latency. This colorful specimen was photographed in the middle of Jubilee State Park. For those familiar with the area, the exact location was a small clearing off the road that leads to the back part of the campground. The easiest way to get there is to walk down the pond trail about a third of the way and then hang a left. You might encounter some thick brush, but if you follow the deer trails it will lead you to the clearing which actually sits on a bit of a bluff. This is usually a treasure trove of field birds enjoying the spoils of the open brush with close proximity to the safety at the surrounding tree line. It might be a bit noisy getting to the spot, so you might have to give some time for the birds to get comfortable again – a little patience usually brings a target rich environment.

Golden-Crowned Kinglet shot in Jubilee State Park April 2014

Hit the jump to see a few more images of this Golden-Crowned Kinglet.

Continue reading Crown Me

By Any Other Name It Would Be A Crab

Greetings everyone! It has been a big weekend with the release of this Wildlife Blog.  In tribute of that new chapter, I bring you another wildlife post…Hermit Thrush shot near West Alton Missouri (Ellis Island) March 2014

This cute little specimen was shot on a birding trip down by Alton Illinois back in March 2014. My catalog system was slightly compromised because I put this up in the Birding Illinois gallery. Technically we were birding Illinois until we went over the bridge into West Alton which puts us officially in the State of Missouri. What’s a few thousand feet between birding friends hehehe. While on the other side of the river we paid a visit to one of our usual spots down there – Ellis Island. This is the first time I explored the trails at the end of the main trail from the parking lot. Most of the time we entertain ourselves with the backwaters on the left side of the trail looking for interesting waterfowl. Little did I know there were some nice trails that take you through a nice variety of landscapes (wooded, clearing etc.). This specimen was hanging out on some vines on the edge of the timber.

Hit the jump to find out what this bird is and see a couple more shots (although the one you are looking at is the best of the lot)

Continue reading By Any Other Name It Would Be A Crab

King of the West

The upside of a recent surgery is I have to stay down for a while (and you know how I HATE that) which equates to more time for posting…. on birds hehehehe.
Western Kingbird shot at Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden Colorado May 2014
As is the norm around here, my featured bird comes from a number of years back.  To be precise, all the way back to May of 2014.  I used to beat myself up more on my tremendous backlog of pictures, but the more camera enthusiasts I meet, the more I realized this is pretty common – especially for those of us holding down a primary job completely unrelated to photography.  I know for a fact my brother Ron is starting to experience a growing queue as well which is especially painful for him not that his bird count has plummeted to like three thanks to initiating his new blog (see the link in the navigation bar).  Of course, this means I can spend those cold winter days inside birding from my queue in the comfort of my den sipping hot chocolate – yeah!
Western Kingbird shot at Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden Colorado May 2014

Hit the jump to see a lot more pictures of this bird … might even reveal what it is.

Continue reading King of the West