To refresh your memory, here is the photo from June’s Bird Quiz. The bird was seen in Colorado during the month of June. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
Category: Birds
Pear-shaped Little Suckers
Exclaiming over the lovely colors, I went to put the bouquet of bearded irises into a vase. As I took out a sharp pair of scissors to cut the stems to size, I noticed a bumpy layer of pale green… something, tucked into the crevices between the leaves. On closer inspection, I realized they were aphids. OK, sort of gross, but not terminally so. Then I realized I had smooshed aphid bodies all over my fingers.
Ewww!!!
June’s Bird Quiz
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during the month of June. The answer will appear next week.
Starting Over
I miss my birds. Until a month ago, we lived on almost five acres outside of town, with huge Ponderosa pine trees and a two-acre field. My yard list numbered over 60 species. I could stand at the kitchen window and watch three species of hummingbird at the feeder hanging from the eaves, and enjoy the antics of the Bluejays, Steller’s Jays, and Scrub Jays as they competed with the magpies for peanuts left on our balcony railing.
Bird Photography: Light
The word “photography” means “writing with light,” and the right lighting can make the difference between a ho-hum snapshot and an award-winning photograph. But what is the “right” lighting? And how do you take advantage of it?
In general, photographers think of light as coming from one of four directions—from the front, side, back, or overhead. Each of these has pros and cons, with widely varying results. Then there are different qualities of light, such as bright or soft. Different combinations of these conditions will greatly affect your results.
May Quiz: Answer
To refresh your memory, here is the photo from May’s Bird Quiz. The bird was seen in Colorado during the month of May. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
What Made These Holes?
Do your lilacs look like someone took a giant hole punch to their leaves? How about your rosebushes (left), green ash, or Virginia creeper? The first time I saw the precise circle of leaf missing from a leaf, I thought someone was playing a trick on me. It didn’t look at all like insect damage.
May’s Bird Quiz
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during the month of May. The answer will appear next week.
For answers to last week’s “Do You Speak Twitcher?—The Sequel”, keep reading….
Do You Speak “Twitcher”?—The Sequel
Remember that little quiz I posted a while back? The one asking you to define a list of British birding terms? Well, I have ten more words or phrases that are equally incomprehensible to North American birders. Can you figure out what these mean? Answers will appear next week (below the bird quiz).
- Old duffer
- On the deck
- Patch
- Phase
- Plastic
- Scorch
- Stringy
- Tart
- UTV’s
- Yank
Bird Photography: Keep It Simple, Sweetie
You’re out birding and you see an adorable Mountain Chickadee, busily working over the scrub oak branch looking for a snack. Happily, you’ve got your camera, so you grab a few quick shots. But when you get home and enlarge them on your computer screen, you’re disappointed. The bird is cute, but it’s surrounded by brushy twigs and dead leaves.
As I scroll through photo after photo on my various Facebook photography sites, I’m struck by the stark disparity between the experienced photographers and the obvious beginners. There’s nothing wrong with being a beginner—we all had to start there—but there is a problem if you stay a beginner year after year.
Mountain Plover 