I’ve been an amateur bird-watcher probably since high school. I lived in Florida then, spending hours following sea birds at Clearwater Beach on the Gulf coast. While attending college in Tennessee in the 1970’s I never got past my confusion with confusing spring and fall warblers but I had a great time trying. Not one to keep a life list, or hunt down elusive specimens, I carry binoculars and a camera pretty much everywhere I go, forever on the lookout for whatever might be perched nearby or flying past. I have learned enough over the years to accomplish at least a cursory identification on the fly. I never bought the recordings and so don’t know bird songs at all (well, maybe chickadees and mourning doves but not much else). My well-thumbed Sibley’s Guide to Birds has the occasional note where I jot down the date and place of an unusual siting.
The second app I will acquire whenever I finally get a smart phone will be bird identification from Audubon or Nat Geo. You can probably guess what my first app will be.
I photographed these first three birds at the AZ Sonoran Desert Museum in October 2009.
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| Cactus Wren |
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| Gilded Flicker in a saguaro |
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| Phainopepla |
In August 2009 I spent a couple days on Lake Powell with a friend; a new friend kept us company for a bit as it fished for breakfast.
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| Great Blue Heron |
During a blizzard last winter I watched for nearly two hours as this flicker hung on to the leeward side of a utility pole until the storm abated.
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| Northern Flicker |
During summer 2009 I worked as a park ranger at Cedar Breaks National Monument and was able to take my camera everywhere I went.
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| Pine Siskin |
I was fortunate to be able to watch the Swainson’s Hawks all summer.
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| Swainson’s Hawk |
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| Swainson’s Hawk |
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| Swainson’s Hawk over Cedar Breaks National Monument |
