Tag: photography

Posted on in Birds, Conservation, Nature, Public gardens

Mid-Summer Abundance

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July is not the best time to go birding. The sweat drips from under your floppy hat and smears the view through your binos, and there’s a puddle soaking your shirt under your sling/backpack/fanny pack. It’s a challenge just carrying enough water to stay hydrated.

The birds aren’t cooperating, either. Most of the males have stopped singing now that they have their mates and their territories. Soon they’ll be molting out of their breeding plumage into something much duller and harder to identify. Some are already thinking about heading south, although they won’t actually leave town for a few more weeks.

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Posted on in Birding Tips, Birding Trips, Birds

Fieldtrip Re-run

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I’ve gone on this same field trip every year for the past five years. It’s always the first weekend in March. A dozen or so of us follow a series of barely-used back roads out onto the plains, searching for hawks, falcons, and other birds. Some years the snow falls, the wind howls, and the birds hunker on the ground. We see very little. Other years the weather is delightful, and the sky is full of soaring raptors.

The lead car gets the best view. Red-tails and Rough-legged Hawks perch on utility poles, kestrels balance on the wires, and Northern Harriers skim the short-grass prairie. The rest of us eat dust and catch glimpses of the back-ends of startled birds.

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Posted on in Birds

Amazing Insect Images

You have to see these photographs.

I am very aware that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of emails making the rounds, not to mention blogs and other websites, all with cute or unbelievable photographs in them. This is not one of those.

Well-known photographer Igor Siwanowicz is in a class by himself. If I can manage to create photographs half as incredible as his are, I will consider myself an unbridled success.

The above link takes you to just 60 of his close-ups of insects and other small creatures. Each one is a work of art. Please take the time to look. You’ll be so glad you did.

Posted on in Birding Tips, Birds, Photography

Family Photos

Canada Goose family, ColoradoJune isn’t a great time to go birding. In most parts of the country, territories are established, nests are built, eggs are laid, and the birds are either busy incubating those eggs or are run ragged trying to satisfy the insatiable appetites of their demanding offspring. Either way, the parents are being especially careful to hide the whereabouts of their progeny, making it very difficult for us birders.

However, June is a great time to take bird photographs. Family photos are so much more appealing than those of solitary portraits. If you can manage to locate a nest, grab your telephoto lens and settle in for a shoot.

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Posted on in Birds, Gardening, Media Reviews

Blogs I Like

Today I’d like to highlight two of my favorite blogs, one about birding and one about gardening. There are lots of other great birding and gardening blogs, so please check out the list of links to the right. I’d also love to hear about your favorites. I look for reliable information, interesting stories, great pictures. What do you recommend?

Birding

brdpics-logoBill Schmoker is a Colorado birder who teaches junior high science full time, and still somehow manages to get out and take incredible bird photographs. His pictures have appeared in a number of publications, and the American Birding Association just released Ted Floyd’s Let’s Go Birding, which Bill’s photographs illustrate.

Recently, Bill’s blog, Brdpics, displayed a remarkable series of photographs of a roadrunner and a coyote. Yes, the real thing! One picture even contained both of them at the same time! Since I will probably only get photos like that in my wildest dreams, please go look at his.

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