To refresh your memory, here is the photo from August’s Bird Quiz. It was taken in Colorado during the month of May. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
Tag: bird
August’s Bird Quiz
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during May.
Take Better Bird Photos
What’s a birder to do, once we’ve checked off all the easily seen local birds? I, for one, can’t afford endless trips to exotic places. I don’t have time to chase rarities (which is why I missed the Red-necked Rail at Bosque last month). And I don’t keep year lists, or county lists (or even state lists).
How do you maintain your interest in species you see trip after trip? I turned to photography. There’s always the possibility of a better photo—a different pose, interesting behavior, surreal lighting. The more I practice, the better I get, although I have a long way to go before my photos are gracing the cover of National Geographic!
July Quiz: Answer
To refresh your memory, here is the photo from July’s Bird Quiz. It was taken in western Washington during the month of September. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
July’s Bird Quiz
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Washington during September.
June Quiz: Answer
To refresh your memory, here is the photo from June’s Bird Quiz. It was taken on South Padre Island, Texas, during the month of December. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
June’s Bird Quiz
Goodness, I haven’t posted a bird quiz since March. In case you’ve been missing the fun, here is one for June. Can you identify this duck? The photo was taken at the end of December on South Padre Island in southern Texas. My answer will appear next Monday.
Bird Nerd Heaven
Birding and Nature Festivals are springing up all over the country. Start in January at the Wings Over Willcox Birding & Nature Festival in Arizona, or the Morro Bay Bird Festival in California, and continue to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and New Mexico’s Festival of the Cranes in November—if you have the airfare and the time, you can spend an entire year flitting from festival to festival, returning home just in time for the Christmas Bird Count.
Birds Have Rights
A pair of Great Horned Owls recently decided to nest in a tree at a major intersection here in town. Not smart. Still, their choice of nest spots provided their growing family with an ever increasing number of fans… and tons of harassment. It’s unbelievable what some people will do. You can read the whole horrendous story* in our local paper. It makes one wonder about the intelligence level of our population.
The caution sign was largely ignored—people were much too close. Some idiots were poking the twiggy structure with sticks, trying to make the parents fly. Others were climbing the tree. In fact, families sent their small children up the tree for a peek into the nest! Don’t they know that the owls are dangerous?
How to Name a Bird, Part 2
If you missed last Monday’s Part 1, be sure to read that post first. Now I’ll continue with my identification checklist.
What does it look like?
This is the obvious one, but even here there are often too many details to take them all in at once. I usually start with color, and “general impression of size and shape” (GISS). Are there any obvious marks that might narrow things down?
If the bird is still posing for me, I move to the details. What color is the eye, and is there an eye-ring? What about the beak? Long or short, pointed (for bug-catching) or wedge-shaped (for seed-cracking), curving or straight? On a sitting bird, do the wings protrude past the tail? What color are the legs and feet? Is there anything else that stands out?
Mountain Plover 