A Novice Birder: Four Years of Birding Photos

I wasn't always a birder; before the pandemic, I couldn't identify more than two or three birds. But when we began to isolate at home, I spent more and more time staring out our back window, and before long, our one feeder morphed into a half-dozen feeders and a bird bath.

I'm still not a knowledgable birder. I prefer a camera to binoculars, mainly so I can look up what I'm seeing on iNaturalist when I get home from birding. All the various iterations of the appearances of birds---juvenile, breeding plumage, male and female---it often feels overwhelming to me, and I have no interest in memorizing all the markings. What I like to do is look at birds, watch them, take photos of them. And that's enough for me.

According to iNaturalist, I've made 1,015 bird observations and I've seen 176 species of birds. Here are a few of my favorite bird captures in the course of my birding adventures in the last four years.

The results of my first few months of taking bird photos were blurry and out-of-focus and taken from far away. How iNaturalist knew this was a Snowy Egret amazes me.

It was easier to take photos of birds that came to my feeders, just outside my back window. I grew more confident as I saw that I could eventually get a pretty clear shot of a bird, like this one of a Pine Warbler.

Gradually, I came to know these year-round residents of my yard: Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Carolina Chickadee.

I began to take my camera along to look for birds at places we hiked, like the Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary: Lincoln's Sparrow, Hooded Warbler.

If I watched carefully, I was surprised to see the birds that appeared in my own backyard: Painted Bunting, Indigo Bunting, Scarlet Tanager.

As the restrictions of the pandemic were lifted, I established a practice of taking a camera everywhere I went. Here are some of my favorite photos.

Great Blue Heron

Belted Kingfisher

Wood Duck

Crested Caracara

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

American Avocets

(Guess which bird I identify with?!)

Whooping Cranes, surprising me by flying over unexpectedly

Red-breasted Merganser

Bald Eagle

White-tailed Kite

Red-bellied Whistling Ducks

Snowy Egret

Forster's Terns

My bird list of birds I have seen or heard.

Photographs of birds I've taken.

My iNaturalist account.

For more photos, link up at Wordless Wednesday, Comedy Plus, Messymimi's Meanderings, Keith's Ramblings, Create With Joy, Wild Bird Wednesday, and My Corner of the World.

Ah! It's Time for Another Classics Club Spin!

"Read the best books first, 

or you may not have a chance to read them at all."

                ---Thoreau

The Classics Club has issued the announcement of the 33rd Classics Club Spin.

What is the spin?

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday, April 21st, create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

This is your Spin List.

You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.

Try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you have been putting off, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favourite author, re-reads, ancients, non-fiction, books in translation — whatever you choose.)

On Sunday April 21st, The Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by Sunday, June 2nd. 

Let's see who can make it the whole way and finished their spin book!

I haven't read many classics this year, and I'd love to get back to working on my list, so I will be joining in this spin.

So here is my list.

   

1. Hunger by Knut Hamsen

2. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

3.  Summer by Edith Wharton

4. Sanditon by Jane Austen

5. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

6. Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

7. Lost Horizon by James Hilton

8. Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

9. I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki

10. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor 

11. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

12. Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

13. Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

14. Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome

15. Justine (The Alexandria Quartet) by Lawrence Durrell 

16. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

17. The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber 

18. Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

19. Village School by Miss Read

20. Zen and Zen Classics by R. H. Blyth

 Have you read any of these? 

Are you doing the Classics Club Spin? 

Which book would you like to read?

The Sunday Salon: Eclipse!

 

Welcome! I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. What is the Sunday Salon? The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

We were gone to East Texas for four days, and then we returned to a busy week---going to our naturalist group meeting, doing our taxes, taking my dad to his follow-up visit to the eye surgeon, volunteering at Spring Fling held at Quintana Beach, and meeting my friend and her husband visiting from Ohio. 

The eclipse was fantastic. It was cloudy in East Texas, but we intermittently got to see the total eclipse. My son shared this short video he took:

I finished the last few pages of The Road to Oz and then we listened to The Tale of Despereaux on our trip last week. Honestly, I've read very little; I have been too busy to read. And I never thought I'd ever be too busy to read!

What I Read Last Week:

The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

What I'm Reading Now:

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers

Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder by Kenn Kaufman

The Time Garden by Edward Eager

On Love and Barley by Basho

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: A Month of Poetry and Birding Begins

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

We got to enjoy the total eclipse with family

as well as Bigfoot 

at Daingerfield State Park in East Texas.

Good Thing #2:

Lucy, at 21 months,

showed a remarkable interest in nature,

and received her Junior Ranger badge.

Good Thing #3:

We went on hikes at two state parks.

This fellow was on one of the paths we took,

but, happily, he peacefully laid on the path

and caused us no problems.

Yes, he is an Eastern Copperhead.

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.