rkbirding

Baby Hummingbird

2009-04-23T02:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been exactly two years since I last posted to this Blog. What's interesting is I stopped blogging soon after getting a new full-time job and now that I'm no longer at that job -- as of last week -- I'm back blogging. Coincidence?

I wish I could blame it on the job, but that's not a very good excuse. I guess it's because I've been "bird watching" but not "birding". When you don't actively go out and try to find birds, you tend not to find birds. Well that and there has been a lot of changes in my life such as moving, job hunting, new software projects and, best of all, my new girlfriend, whom I've been with for nine months now.

I finally saw a Woodpecker in action for the first time a couple of months ago. I still need to go back to the park and properly identify it.

Earlier tonight I was with my girlfriend at the drive-thru of a fast food place and we noticed what looked like a moth eating flowers, and then we both realized at the same time that it was a baby Hummingbird. It was the first time either one of us have ever noticed seeing a baby Hummingbird. It is quite a sight; it was almost supernatural looking, like a tiny fairy straight out of a fantasy novel.

Red-tailed hawk antics

2007-04-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at work a Red-tailed Hawk flew about five feet away from me, at eye level, while in pursuit of some Lesser Goldfinches but it failed to get one. Then it landed on a telephone pole thrirty feet above my head. I tried to get its attention as much as I could by making noises and waving my hands but it completely ignored me. I used to be really still to try not to scare them off but again today the same thing happened and it just stood there no matter what I did; it refused to even look at me but it absolutely had to know I was there. It flew right by my head again in pursuit of prey too.

The community I work in is called "Redhawk" and it definitely a fitting name; there's tons of Red-tailed Hawks there. I also saw a one walking around on the ground trying to get some animal in the bushes. Today I also saw more interesting behavior when a Raven and a Red-tailed Hawk were fighting with each other in the sky. I've seen a Raven doing acrobatics and attacking a Hawk in flight before but this was the first time I've seen a Hawk doing acrobatics (it did a couple rolls) and it fought back. They went at it for a few minutes then flew out of sight.

I also saw a Greater Roadrunner again yesterday. This is only the second time I've seen one and I didn't have my camera on me again! At least this one hung around for a couple of minutes so I could get a good look at it. I first spotted it running across the street with something white in its mouth, which I assume was food it was bringing back to its nest. It ran from bush to bush, knowing I was watching it, and finally made its way onto the hillside shrubs--which is the same environment the last Roadrunner I saw ran into.

Backyard Bird Feeder

2007-03-28T23:34:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last Blog post, I recently bought my first Bird Tube Feeder. The first few days after setting it up I had no visitors but about the fifth day into it, tons of birds started showing up. It started with a couple House Finches and Mourning Doves and then some White-crowned Sparrows and California Towhees started showing up. A female Red-winged Blackbird kept showing up and, at first I had no idea what it was, but omething told me took check my field guide for female common birds--since they often throw me off when they look radically different than the males of the same species--and sure enough, it was a female Red-winged Blackbird.

Today the first and only House Sparrow I've seen, since I moved from San Bernardino a few months ago, showed up at the feeder. I'm still not sure why there hasn't been any House Sparrows or European Starlings around here, but I'm definitely not going complain about that! I'll take the many White-crowned, Vesper and Savannah Sparrows that show up all the time, any day.

The birds managed to eat the entire tube-full of bird seed I put in there, all within about two days since they started showing up.

I just bought a seven pound bag of "finch blend" bird seed (designed to attract finch type birds) and it clearly works, since most of the birds that have shown up have been House Finches. It's also attracted California Towhees, which are also finches. I haven't seen any other types of finches at the feeder yet though. I plan to buy another type of bird seed soon to see what other birds I can attract. It's pretty nice having the birds come to me for once.

As a side note, I also saw an American Crow in my backyard eating a Grasshopper today.

Here are some Killdeer photos I took the other day at an elementary school. They were purposely standing under the sprinklers, taking a shower and they let me get closer than they normally tend to:

Costa's Hummingbird

2007-03-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

In a recent blog post I stated that I took the Costa's Hummingbird off of my life-list because I determined that I never actually saw one. Well, yesterday I added it back to my life-list because I finally did see one.

Let's rewind a bit first. About a week ago I bought a birdwatching hat and my first tube feeder:

I've had about the two worst hats for birding: a red baseball cap and a white baseball cap. Those colors are terrible for trying to get close to birds. I've never worn any hat but a baseball cap, but I figured I'd try something new, especiall something with more protection from the sun.

This is also my first bird feeder that holds bird seed. It cost about twenty dollars at Lowes. I had a Hummingbird feeder at my last house and I used to just pour bird seed onto the window pane when I lived at one apartment in LA. Anyway, I'll blog more about bird feeding later. So far I haven't had any birds come visit it. At any rate, since I've had no birds show up yet, I started throwing other types of food around the bird feeder to attract birds.

I threw some peanuts, raisins, bread and french fries in the backyard the day before yesterday, and yesterday I noticed an American Crow grabbing french fries with its beak. The interesting thing is that it wasn't eating or flying off with them; It was burying the french fries! As you can see from the image below, we have some loose bark scattered around the non-grassy areas of the backyard. This is where the Crow was burying the french fries. He would pick up one and fly to one spot and bury it, then he'd grab another fry and burry it somewhere else. Each time he buried a french fry he'd sit there for a few seconds and "caw" out and try to remember where he buried it to come back for it later, I guess. This was pretty funny and I had no idea Crows even did this dog-like behavior.

While I was watching the Crow bury french fries, with my binoculars from my bedroom, I noticed a Hummingbird. At first I assumed it was yet another Anna's Hummingbird--but then the sunlight hit it a certain way and I noticed a very brilliant purple color on its head area. I instantly thought "Costa's" but then it was gone.

I wanted to take a picture of it, or at least see it more so I could be 100% sure it was a Costa's Hummingbird. I waited a few minutes but didn't see it and assumed it probably wasn't coming back. So I took the Compact Flash memory card out of my digital camera to plug it into my card-reader, so I could upload the crow pictures to my computer. While I was doing that the Hummingbird came back and perched on a tree about twenty feet away from my bedroom window. "Great," I thought, as I yanked the memory card out of the card-reader and quickly placed it back into my camera. I turned the camera on and started taking pictures, through the glass of my bedroom window, before it flew off. I figured that any pictures would be better than no pictures and, sure enough, it flew off after a few seconds.

After reviewing the pictures inside my camera on its LCD display I was able to determine that it was indeed a Costa's Hummingbird. I was so excited that I got a second chance to see the hummingbird, and take pictures, that I quickly pulled the memory card out of the camera to upload them. The problem was I forgot to turn the camera off before I took the card out. This was the first time I've ever done that and the camera started acting weird and tried to shut itself off. Unfortunately, all the images got erased! All I could do was laugh and hope the bird would somehow come back again.

I must have stared at that tree waiting for the Costa's Hummingbird to come back for at least an hour. I started realizing that this is something I'm going to have to get used to though. I know that most birders don't and can't get pictures of all the birds they see. Finally I gave up and was going to go to the store but the minute I went to leave, the Hummingbird came back and landed on the tree again! I quickly turned my camera on and started taking pictures again, glad that I had a another chance. This time I made sure to turn my camera off before ejecting my memory card. The bird also stuck around long enough to view it with my binoculars and take a really good look at it for a couple minutes.

I ran down stairs to go out to the backyard to try to get a clearer shot of the Costa's Hummingbird and I was only able to take one picture before it flew off--and this time it never returned. The pictures from the bedroom window didn't turn out that well, but they're better than nothing. I love to get pictures of every new type of bird I see. So far, there's only one bird on my list that I didn't get a picture of (yet): the Greater Roadrunner.

What appears to be black on its chin and neck area is actually the purple color, which you can kind of see in the second image in the compilation, if you look hard enough.

Since I began this blog--about 15 months ago--I have been relying soley on flickr.com to host my photos. I finally reached the limit on the free account of 200 images. I was about to pay the $25 (per year) fee to flickr to upgrade to a pro account, but I figured for that much I could get my own hosting. So now is probably a good time to ask, please donate anything you can afford if you like my blog, even a dollar helps. Donating will get your name listed on my thank you page. My PayPal address and my e-mail address are both: rkulla AT gmail DOT com. Thanks.

I recently noticed that Google is now offering a online image service called Picasaweb. They offer over one gigabyte of free storage to start out with, and that will probably increase over time, just like their gmail service. I was able to upload all of my bird photos to it, which is actually only about twelve megabytes worth of images so far. So I probably will never have to worry about image hosting again thanks to Google! You can view all of my bird photos at once (many are not included in blog entries) by going to my picasaweb page.

That's all for now. Here's a few more pictures I took of the Costa's Hummingbird, a Rainbow and a Lesser Goldfinch:

Roadrunner

2007-03-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

I saw my first Roadrunner today. A Greater Roadrunner. I was on my break at work and it was standing in the street for a few seconds, at which point I stumbled to get my camera, but all I could do was watch the bird run very quickly all the way across the street and into the bushes, never to be seen again the rest of the day. So, it was both an exciting experience and a slightly dissatisfying experience because it happened so quick (literally the entire sighting lasted maybe 10 seconds) and I have no photos to capture the moment or share. Fortunately, Greater Roadrunners are supposed to be year-round denizens of the area and so I'm confident I'll get more opportunities to see them.

I started thinking about how many types of birds I've now seen that I really wanted to see when I first got into birding, a little over a year ago: Hawks, Owls, Hummingbirds, Roadrunners, Blackbirds, Swallows, Quail, Vultures, and so on. There's still a few general types of birds that I haven't seen that I've really wanted to see. Such as: Woodpeckers and Eagles--and of course there are literally hundreds of species I'd be excited to see; many from other countries.

Seeing this Roadrunner really made my day and I think it has a lot to do with my intention to be a Birder. Someone else saw that Roadrunner today at the same time as me, and they were excited it about it, but only for that 10 seconds. From talking to him afterward, I can tell that it was just a very quick and passing experience and nothing to make a big fuss over. I'm sure that before I had the intention to be a birder it wouldn't have been such a big deal to me either, but I'm just really glad that I have this intention now and it makes me wonder about how else I could enhance my life by having other intentions; At any rate, that's beyond the scope of this Birding Blog so I'll leave it at that.

three new birds

2007-03-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

I have three new birds to add to my list, but one to take off. I've decided to take "Costa's Hummingbird" off my list because at the time I labelled it I was very inexperienced and after looking and the pictures, and through more thinking, I realized it was an Anna's Hummingbird. It was the only bird on my list that I never felt one hundred percent sure about, but I felt pretty sure that I had at least identified them by sound at the time. However, it's not my style to put birds on my life-list that I'm not very sure about so I'm taking it off.

I do have three more birds to add to my list though. The first is the Ring-billed Gull:

What's interesting about this bird is that--long before becoming a bird watcher--growing up in Southern California near the beach, I used to see these birds literally every day; yet, since I've moved more inland, I have rarely seen them at all. In fact, since getting into birding I have only seen them a few times, and everytime I've seen them I haven't had my camera on me. I even went down to the local strip mall parking lots on a few occasions to finally get some pictures of them and make a positive ID but they were never there on days I was actively looking for them. Luckily, I bring my camera to work and on Sunday I stopped at the grocery store afterward and saw some.

Indeed, I'm more excited that I finally saw some new sparrows. Yesterday and today I saw some Vesper Sparrows:

[click to enlarge]

And I saw some Savannah Sparrows:

They were pretty tricky to identify at first, but luckily I got some help from the great people on birdforum. I'm fairly confident in distinguishing the two birds now, mostly based on their eyes.

While I was taking pictures of the sparrows in my sister's backyard yesterday, two Turkey Vultures decided to fly overhead for a few seconds, allowing me to get clearer photos than I currently have of them:

Today I was also able to see a Northern Harrier doing it's thing where it hovers in place about thirty feet above the ground (almost like a hummingbird). I didn't have my camera on me but I'm sure I'll see it again because we have a lot of them around. I read that they sometimes go after rabbits and there are a lot of Brush Rabbits around. I wouldn't want to see that though, the rabbits are cute.

I woke up at dawn today to get out to the backyard to bird but no birds were around until 8am. I haven't been waking up very early in a few months and wanted to see if i'd have better luck earlier in the morning, but apparently not. I guess I don't have to feel as guilty about sleeping in now :)

Of further possible interst to other birders, I sent Cornell Lab of Ornithology this e-mail:

For the last few days I haven't been able to access your bird sounds for any birds on http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/ It hasn't worked a single time during any part of the day or night. It used to work fine but now all I get lately when I click the "listen to a song of this species" link is a popup error message:

"Server has reached its capacity and can serve no more streams. Please try again later.
rtsp://132.236.201.103/audio/344a/344a.rm"

Considering how constant this has been, and how it's never happened before, you might be under some for of "Denial of Service" attack and you may want to consult a computer network security expert.

I hope you get this issue resolved soon because I love, and rely on, your web site!

and they replied:

Dear Ryan,
Thanks very much for letting us know about the problem with the sounds at our web site. We are experiencing an unexpected upswing in the number of visitors to our web site. This has resulted in there being more people trying to listen to our sounds at one time than our license allows. We're working hard to remedy this problem as soon as possible, so please check back periodically at the web site.

Anne Hobbs
Public Information Specialist
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
http://www.birds.cornell.edu

Your membership dollars support our Lab programs including our initiatives in protecting the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Won't you consider supporting our feathered friends by becoming a member of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology? You can sign up on line or by phone at 1-800-843-2473.

Bird Fun

2007-03-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

When I lived in San Bernardino, California, I used to see House Sparrows, European Starlings and Northern Mocking Birdsevery day, but ever since I moved to two new locations--40 and then 60 miles away--I haven't seen any of those birds; until today! I finally saw a Northern Mockingbird this morning at my sister's house and then again at work, which is the next city over. It was also the hottest day of the year so far, I think. Perhaps this is a sign that Spring is near.

I managed to bird from work again during my break and was able to get my first photos of a Turkey Vulture; Unfortunately, they're not very good. The vultures were circling above very high up (as they do) and I was only able to snap these two shots:

But they're better than nothing.

I thought for sure I'd get better shots because there was carrion on the street near me, but somehow the vultures never seemed to notice it. They flew around for hours and hours close to it, but not directly above it. Although, they might have noticed it and just not wanted to bother with it since there was constant mild traffic on the street. Some Common Ravens noticed it for sure but didn't bother with it.

A few days ago I was able to get some clearer shots of California Quail:

There were about ten Quail all together and, as usual, when they saw me they went running off, but this time they didn't disappear into thin air! I can definitely understand why they're called Quail. They're very funny birds though.

While I was out looking for a new birding spot I came across my first Coyote:

It quickly grew dark, but the spot showed potential, so I'll be back again.

The Great Egret was back near the yard again and this time it seemed to be eating some small frogs and/or lizards; I couldn't quite see what it was but I know we have tons of both around the spot it was hunting. It was probably small frogs. With my binoculars I saw it eat at least three.

My sister Jenelle, got me a game called "Birds of North America 100 Piece Memory Game" which is one of those memory where two or more players have flip cards over and try to remember where they are and later match them up. It's a very fun game that I've been playing with my young nieces and teen sister and I highly recommend it. It includes two cards for each species and shows the name of the birds and has really helped me memorize what these fifty birds look like. So it's not just a fun game, it's educational and great for bird watchers. I didn't think the kids would be too into it but they get really intense with it and we all end up cracking up laughing a lot while playing and, even though they're not that interested in birds, they've learned some things about them just from playing the game.

And for more bird fun I've been listening to some birding Podcasts. I listen to tons of podcasts on various topics and so far have found two birding related ones. One is Ray Brown's Talkin' Birds and the other is called For The Birds, by Laura Erickson, who also has a really good birding Blog. I highly recommend both shows.

new camera

2007-03-03T22:47:00.000-08:00

I have a much better camera now thanks to my buddy Brian. He just bought a new camera and was kind enough to give his Canon Powershot Pro1 digital camera to me (along with some other stuff that I probably shouldn't mention because it'll make you hate me for being so lucky). This is an 8 megapixel camera with 7x optical zoom--which is over three times more zoom power than my last camera--so it's much better for birding. It includes other things that will help me take bird shots, such as the fact that the camera can power on within two seconds, has a wireless remote control, camera RAW image format and more. It's really great and I took a few pictures with it while I was reading the manual trying to learn all its controls.

While I was at work on February 18th, I saw my first Turkey Vulture but I didn't have a camera on me so I don't have any pictures of it. I did get to see it hovering around for at least 20 minutes and I also saw it land in the middle of the street to eat some road kill that some ravens were also pigging out on. It was really cool how this turkey vulture flew, you could really see it's red-ish head looking around as it glided overhead.

When I recieved the new camera it was raining out and I took a picture of a Cooper's Hawk to test out its zoom power. I've only seen a Juvenile Cooper's so this is my first adult Cooper's Hawk sighting. It was perched on a fence post in the field behind my sister's house and I took the picture from the second story of a bedroom. Mind you, her backyard is one hundred feet long so this is actually a pretty good shot considering how far away I was while taking it:

[click to enlarge]

The Great Egret returned and was walking around the backyard and I took this picture from about 50 feet away:

(Of course, for those of you who have better cameras this wouldn't be too impressive but I'm just really happy about having greater zoom capacity!)

Our dog chased the Egret away and I almost got picture of it but it happened to fast and I wasn't ready.

The other day I took my first decent shot with the new camera, it was of a western kingbird:

I've been reading more about photography so--along with the new camera--I'll hopefully be taking better photos than I have been.

Some Red-winged Blackbirds have been hanging out bathing in my sister's pool. I saw them today from the upstairs window while I was eating and I rushed to get the camera out and take pictures and I just managed to get some low quality shots before they flew away:

I'd really like to get a nice clear shot of all the birds I've seen since I started birding.

As I've mentioned, behind my sister's backyard is a wild life conservation area:

and tonight I heard coyotes howling but it was too dark out side to see them. I took a picture using the camera's "night scene" setting:

Well, that's all for now. Until next time.

Hawk, Quail, Bushtits and a rat eating Egret

2007-02-16T21:25:00.000-08:00

I managed to (barely) snap a photo of a California Quail the other day. They like to take off running really fast when they see me coming and then hide and never come back out! I waited and waited but they just refused to come back out from hiding. Unfortunately, the only picture I got was of one of them while they were running about 30 feet ahead of me and his "plume" was cropped out of the photo:

At least I got to see Quail for the first time in person. I climbed half way up this hill and stood still for what must have been 40 minutes waiting to see them:

I tried snapping more pictures of Quail yesterday and today too but no luck. I guess birds have to be great hiders in order to survive.

Anyway, yesterday I managed to see my first Cooper's Hawk:

[click to enlarge]

and my first Bushtits:

They were very cute and very hyper. I had to follow them as they went from tree to tree and finally at the fifth tree they settled down and perched long enough to get a shot.

I'm staying at my sisters house and today I noticed a Great Egret with something in it's mouth so I whipped out my binoculars and saw that it was a rat. It must have been about six inches long by 3 inches wide! I watched it for about 15 seconds as it tried to swallow it and then I decided to run downstairs and across the backyard to snap a photo of it. There's a kind of nature preserve site directly behind my sister's house that supposedly has shrimp that only come out when it rains enough to fill it up with water.

Anyway, by the time I got to it it had already started swallowing the rat and I think it was in its throat when I took a picture:

I stuck around and watched it digest it (for scientific purposes of course). The Egret looked like it was having a really hard time. It looked like it was choking a few times and a few minutes later was still kind of having a hard time, but that's probably normal given the fact it just swallowed a rat whole! About thirty minutes later it seemed perfectly fine and flew off to another spot.

As a bonus, an online friend of mine named Tom Balfe sent me this E-mail that you may find interesting:

"Here's something you'll appreciate, although I don't have any pictures. It's just my mental notes of the wood stork, feel free to share with others on your blog:

[observations made during 2001 and 2002]

While in Sarasota, FL at an apartment not far from downtown I would regularly go to a pond to watch birds. I spent lots of time there as I enjoy birding. Once in a while I would see a wood stork and I would cherish those times. I believe their numbers have decreased by roughly 50% since 1960.

Although I didn't take written notes of their behavior, I did make mental notes of their general attributes.

They are very shy birds and choose to stay away from other tall birds or even ducks. They seem to land and feed and do it alone. One more than one occasion I did notice a wood stork eating. Their bill makes a very pleasant and distinctive noise when they are chewing, it sounds like two pieces of empty wood knocking together. I'm guessing that's where their name came from.

On every occasion I observed the wood storks they were very cautious around other birds especially herons and muscovy ducks (one of my favorite birds of all time, btw). They gave a wide birth to both of those species and chose to move to another area of the pond to feed.

While the wood storks were feeding I couldn't discern exactly what they were feeding upon although it looked like the mossy stuff that is at the bottom of ponds. I've never observed a wood stork fishing for minnows like other pointy beak birds we have here in FL. Maybe the reduction of natural diet through the processes of human habitation are a factor in their decline, for example runoff of agriculture fertilizer into streams and ponds.

When wood storks decide to move to another area to avoid other birds they seem to walk quietly turning their head frequently to observe the other bird. Sometimes they decide to leave the area altogether and simply fly away.

To anyone reading this, I'm sorry for my non-scientific observation, I don't have any academic training in birding. I will try to videotape a wood stork the next time I get the chance because it won't be around forever, it may be extinct in our lifetime."

Thanks Tom

2007

2007-02-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been 3 months since i've added an entry to this blog! Why? Well, a few reasons. Birding isn't a top priority for me, it's a hobby, but I try to do it fairly often and I don't really like to blog about it unless I see a brand new species of bird or something. And, as I said in my last post, I had just moved to San jacinto and was planning on doing a lot of birding there since it's a great area. But there were a couple of problems.

In San Jacinto all that happened was seeing the same birds I was seeing in San Bernardino. The only difference was I was seeing them a lot. Most of the birds I was having a fairly hard time seeing (Red Tailed Hawks, Black Phoebes, White Crowned Sparrows, Yellow Rumped Warblers, Killdeer, Hummingbirds...) I was seeing tons! On one hand this was pretty exciting for me because I
was able to see these birds in action a lot more and I was seeing all these birds
without even trying, they were just everywhere. But, on the other hand, I always want to see new birds. That's just my thing :)

It's not to say that there were no new birds around, of course there were, I just
didn't see any -- largely because I wasn't really trying I admit. I was busy unpacking and trying to find a job and stuff for the couple of months I lived in San Jacinto.

But then, the house burned down! Well, the garage did anyway, but the entire house became unliveable. My bedroom was located above the garage, but not directly above it thankfully; So my bedroom was in tact. Fortunately, I only lost about 5 percent of my belongings -- just things that were in the garage like my mountain bike and some books and DVD's I hadn't unpacked. The fire-fighters did such a great job and most of the stuff in my room was okay. A few things, like my ipod broke. I also got this great new birding book for christmas that plays the bird songs of all the birds with a built in electronic speaker but the sound no longer works, doh! However, my computer, digital camera, binoculars, spotting scope, field guide and most of the stuff I use for birding survived! They survived because I had them in my closet with the door closed so they weren't hosed off by water or damaged by smoke. The fire insurance for the house didn't cover my stuff since I was just renting so I got pretty lucky.

In case you're wondering, my roomate caused the fire on accident while dropping a lamp in the garage while trying to inspect his car. Crazy how stuff happens so quick! My advice to any viewers is make sure you have fire insurance and make sure you have a fire-extinguisher. I used to think that if there ever was a fire in my house that I'd run around quickly try to pull my important belongings out, but not so! When there's a fire it just happens so quickly and so unexpectedly that you have no time to do anything but get the hell out of the house and call 911. Fire just spreads to quickly for you to think you have any time to stick around, trust me!

Anyway, the house will be fixed but not for about eight months and we don't plan to move back once it does. I've been staying at my sisters house in Murrieta, California (about 30 miles away) since then. It's pretty nice for birding here too. Oh, and I finally birded today! As my good friend Steve said "like the Phoenix, you too will rise from the ashes" and so I have and so this blog will continue :) Today I saw my new first birds of 2007.

My first California Towhee:

My first Nothern Harrier:

I also got some clearer shots of killdeer. If you remember my post on killdeer it only had pics I tried to take at night and they were pretty much useless.

I know there are Quail around here so hopefully I'll see some for my next post.

So, I've officially been birding for a year now. My first bird ID post was last feburary. It's been a great year and I've learned a lot and have a ton to learn. This is what I originally set out to do with this blog, just journal my experiences with birding and not to post much on irrelevant things. I want each post to be meaningful or at least somewhat informative, but since I'm no expert I don't want to try to teach anything! At the very least I hope viewers find these pictures interesting.

Until next time.

New birds

2006-11-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted since August because I was in the process of moving to a new city and was having internet difficulties, but I'm back and I've birded quite a bit and have many pictures, so here we go!

[remember you can click all the images to enlarge them]

On September 24th I saw my first Say's Phoebe:

On October 22nd I saw my first Great Egret:

On oct 25th I was birding at my usual spot, stopped for a snack, and while I was sitting there eating a Red-Shouldered Hawk landed 20 feet away on a branch, so I whipped out my camera as quick as I could and got these shots:

Then I saw some Yellow-rumped Warbler's (Audubon's race):

The next day I saw my first Osprey, perched high up over the lake so this is the closest shot I could get of it:

Then I saw the Great Egret again and was able to get closer shots:

Then I moved to San Jacinto, CA and literally the first minute I went to go out birding, in my drive way I saw a hawk flying toward me and it perched on the second story edge of my new house's roof! I quickily whipped out my camera before it flew away (it ended up being a Juvenial Red-Tailed Hawk):

This is how it looks over my backyard fence, lots of trees and birds, so I'm gonna be birding in my own backyard a lot now:

And here's some misc pictures I took:

Barn Owl Sleeping

2006-08-14T14:53:00.000-07:00

I took some more pictures of the Barn Owl's home at the airport hangar and got a fairly closeup shot of it sleeping:

[click images to enlarge]

The only way to see the owl was to stick my camera through this hole:

Barn Owl

2006-08-07T18:01:00.002-07:00

I finally saw my first Owl since getting into birding! Actually after seeing it I know I have seen a couple flying at night time around here but it wasn't enough to make an ID or take pics until now.

Interestingly, I got to see this Owl at 4 o'clock PM because it was inside an airport hangar where it lives by itself. First I took a "Cherry picker" (one of those hydraulic lifting systems that can take you up a little higher than a telephone pole) to try to get pictures of it but it was way on the other side of the hangar so I ended up having to chase the owl all around from the ground while looking up as it flew around. Very cool bird:

[Note: You can click the images to inlarge them]

I also took more pictures of Red-tailed Hawks today at the airport. There were two of them perched on a tower:

All and all a great day of birding. My neighbor also moved out and gave me his Hummingbird feeder. People have been really cool knowing that I'm into birds. I often get knocks on my doors from people telling me to come look at such and such bird. The other day someone told me there was a stork on the telephone pole across the street from my house and it went to look and it was actually a Great Blue Heron, which I've seen before but never not like that, so that was cool.

A Spiritual Lesson from Ducks

2006-08-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

The following quotes are from two different books by the modern spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. They tell the story of how we humans can learn from Ducks one of the most important lessons to promote both physical and mental health.

An excerpt from the book "The Power of Now":

"I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them cats. Even ducks have taught me important spiritual lessons. Just watching them is a meditation. How peacefully they float along, at ease with themselves, totally present in the Now, dignified and perfect as only a mindless creature can be. Occasionally, however, two ducks will get into a fight - sometimes for no apparent reason, or because one duck has strayed into another's private space. The fight usually lasts only for a few seconds, and then the ducks separate, swim off in opposite directions, and vigorously flap their wings a few times. They then continue to swim on peacefully as if the fight had never happened. When I observed that for the first time, I suddenly realized that by flapping their wings they were releasing surplus energy, thus preventing it from becoming trapped in their body and turning into negativity. This is natural wisdom, and it is easy for them because they do not have a mind that keeps the past alive unnecessarily and then builds an identity around it."

An excerpt from the book "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose":

"In 'The Power of Now' I mentioned my observation that after two ducks get into a fight, which never lasts long, they will separate and float off in opposite directions. Then each duck will flap its wings vigorously a few times thus releasing the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After they flap their wings they float on peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened. If the duck had a human mind it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story making. This would probably be the ducks' story:

I don't believe what he just did! He came to within 5 inches of me. He thinks he owns this pond! He has no consideration for my private space. I'll never trust him again. Next time he'll try something else just to annoy me. I'm sure he's plotting something already but I'm not going to stand for this! I'll teach him a lesson he won't forget.

...and on and on the mind spins its tails. Still thinking and talking about it days, months or years later. As far as the body is concerned, the fight is still continuing, and the energy generates in response to all those thoughts is emotion, which in turn generates more thinking. This becomes the emotional thinking of the ego.
You can see how problematic the duck's life would become if it had a human mind. But this is how most humans live most of the time. No situtation or event is ever really finished. The mind and the mind-made "me and my story" keep it going. We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree, and every animal have important lessons to teach us, if we would only stop, look and listen. Our duck's lesson is this: Flap your wings, which translates as "let go of the story", and return to the only place of power--the present moment."

Even More Hummingbirds

2006-07-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

We moved the Hummingbird feeder out from the tree and more into the open and at eye level so I could get a clearer view:

[Click to enlarge the photos]

More Hummingbirds

2006-07-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

It's been 110+ degrees lately so I haven't done much birding but today I got to take some nice pictures of Hummingbirds at my neighbor's Hummingbird feeder. It was 111 degrees at the time but luckily his feeder was attached to a large hanging tree with lots of shade.

Hummingbirds

2006-07-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

There have finally been Hummingbirds around and I was able to get pictures.

On June 29th I saw some Hummingbirds in the flowers of a large bush across the street from my house. My first Costa's Hummingbird:

[Click to enlarge]

Then on the 30th I saw more Hummingbirds:

Then on July 2nd I saw a Hummingbird that appeared to have a red throat. So, I pulled out my 6x16 Audubon Pocket Monocular and noticed it clearly was a ruby throat, so I got my camera and here's a picture of my first Anna's Hummingbird:

I also got to hear it sing along with a couple other ones. I was wearing my red hat so they kept flying right up to my face then quickly flew off before I could snap a picture.

On July 9th I went to look for birds in a park I haven't been to and I saw a Hummingbird there too:

And I also saw a few more Black Phoebe's after not seeing any for months. They don't like to be photographed so this was the only shot I got:

This park clearly has a habitat that Black Phoebes like so I'm sure I'll see more of them there:

Killdeer

2006-06-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Last night I went back to the Hummingbird spot to see if I could get a better look and some pictures but I didn't see any for the 15 minutes I sat there. The sun went down quick again. I think I saw one Hummingbird fly by me for a second so I'm going to try again later. The reason I waited until sunset to go is because it was so hot outside and it's a moderately far bike ride.

If you read my blog post yesterday you know that I after I went to check for Hummingbirds I went biking around and stumbled upon Cliff Swallows; well, last night after failing to see Hummingbirds at that spot for a second time I did succeed in finding yet another new species, this time on the way home. It was almost completely dark out by now and I saw what appeared at first to be a Mockingbird fly by me but then it landed right in the middle of the street and then started running really fast and I knew that it wasn't a Mockingbird. It then started making a loud series of calls. Cars kept driving by it but it didn't seem to scare it off, it just ran over to the gutter and started drinking water.

The bird then flew over into an empty parking lot and was now completely dark outside but luckily I could see it with the help from the lights in the parking lot. Two other similar birds joined it and they ran around on tall legs looking for food on the pavement. They seemed to be mostly white colored from what little I could see of them. I decided to try to take some pictures of them even though it was so dark and to help me identify them I used my digital camera's movie mode to record their sounds. The whole time I was looking at them I was thinking "Plover" even though I have yet to see one in person--I've only seen them in field guides and on bird documentaries. I figured it was unlikely that it would be a Plover in a parking lot in Inland Southern California, especially at night time, so I didn't bother looking in my field guide under Plovers--my mistake!

I knew it was a new bird so I didn't give up. I made an mp3 audio file from the movie file and posted it, along with a description and a very bad picture of it, to birdforum.net and someone was kind and skilled enough to point out that indeed it was a Plover; more specifically, a Killdeer. To confirm this for myself, I checked on http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Killdeer.html and sure enough the sounds and descriptions matched. So here we have it, my first Plover, a Killdeer:

You can probably guess, after seeing that picture, how I needed more than just sight to see ID this bird!

To here the recording I made of the Killdeer singing click here

Cliff Swallows

2006-06-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, just as the sun was going down, I was out biking in a new area and I spotted 2 hummingbirds, but by the time I got my camera out they took off and then the sun was completely down--and if you've been reading my blog you know that so far Hummingbirds have been teasing me like crazy since I got into birding.

I decided to go back there again today in hopes of finally getting some hummingbird action but when I arrived there was a gardener weed whacking the area so I decided to keep going for another couple miles and I eventually came across an overpass over a dry riverbed and I saw a flock of about 50 to 100 birds. I stopped to look and noticed they were blue and orange looking so I started taking pictures. These birds were very acrobatic and kept flying literally within a foot of my camera lens, but only for a half of a second before they'd fly off, so I kept snapping pictures hoping to get a good one. I also took about a minute of video with my digital camera to capture their songs.

When I arrived home I noticed that I ended up taking about 60 pictures but none of them came out amazingly, but still good enough for an identification. I looked through my field guide and the best match was for Cliff Swallow and their song almost matched that species so here we are, my first Swallow sighting, Cliff Swallows:

(Click to enlarge images)

So, no Hummingbirds yet, but I'm still happy with the Cliff Swallows :) I'm still going to go back again and hopefully the Hummingbirds will still be there.

Clearer Pics and New Bird

2006-06-18T14:07:00.000-07:00

I went back to the lake today and was able to get a much clearer shot of a Snow Goose:

(Remember, you can click any of these images to enlarge them.)

Next, I saw what appeared to be two other snow geese sunbathing next to it but, upon further inspection of the bill, they turned out to be my first sighting of a Ross's Goose:

My field guide says that Ross's Geese are usually mixed with Snow Geese so I guess it's not a surprise to see them hanging out together.

I was also fortunate enough to find that the Green Heron was still there and I was able to get clearer pictures of it too:

Here is a Canada Goose Gossling that I also saw there:

Down the street from the lake I got to take my first pictures of a perched Red-tailed Hawk. I noticed it perched from very far away, and it kept calling out very loud screeches. I had to put my bike down by the road and run about 100 feet into a very weedy field just to get close enough for these far away shots. I probably could have gotten closer to it but I noticed a car stop to check out my bike and I was worried about going too far from it because it's an expensive bike. The hawk flew off anyway, as you can see in the pictures:

It was a good hour of birding. It's fun being more aware of different birds; I was also able to see some more Lesser Goldfinches, House finches, Western Meadowlarks, Western Kingbirds, Egyptian Geese, Snowy Egrets, Double-crested Cormorants, Lawrence's Goldfinches, American Kestrels, and a few other birds that I've seen in the past all within an hour just riding my bike around.

More Summer Birding

2006-06-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was great. I saw seven new birds!

On my way to the lake I saw my first kingbird, a Western Kingbird:

In the same open field I saw a few female Lesser Goldfinches:

When I got to the lake the three egyptian geese were still there hanging out in the same spot. I then went walking around and noticed my first Muscovy Ducks (domesticated):

Then I saw my first Cormorant, a Double-crested Cormorant:

A little later I saw my first Snow Goose:

It was swimming pretty far away to get a great shot with my camera but it appears to have that black grin patch and the size of the bill separate it from a Ross's Goose.

At the edge of an island in the lake I spotted my first Mandarin Duck:

(A Male Mandarin on its way to Eclipse plumage, perhaps?)

After that, I was getting ready to leave but luckily I decided to go by the one part of the lake I didn't go by yet that day and I saw my first Herons. First I saw a Green Heron, but only for a couple seconds before it flew off. I could only get pictures of it flying away:

Then I saw the largest bird I've seen so far, and now one of my favorite. A juvenile Great Blue Heron:

Its wings are amazing and it just sat at the edge so calm and still waiting for little fish to swim by. I had to follow it to the other side of the lake and back because kids kept running by and scaring it off. It did let me walk very close to it (up to within about 10 feet or so), as long as I walked very slowly.

Happy for the day, I decided to leave and as I was leaving I saw the Snowy Egret again:

Summer Birding

2006-06-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

I went birding a lot yesterday and today at the lake to make up for going a whole month without birding. I actually had another good dream the other night about birding and the urge was too strong to ignore, plus I had been wanting to bird this whole time but I've been so busy and I didn't even realize it had been 5 weeks already! So I went on a birding binge for 2 days.

Yesterday I saw my first Snowy Egret and today I saw some other great new birds. I'm just going to post what I saw yesterday right now and tommorow I'll post what I saw today, because I have to wade through the 200 pictures I took!

Snowy Egret:

I also saw 3 Egyptian Geese hanging out together yesterday and today! Before this I've only seen 1 egyptian goose so I was pretty surprised:

RavenAttack

2006-05-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

Got some pics of Common Ravens attacking a Red-tailed Hawk and an American Kestrel today. And I've finally positively identified the Common Raven. Super easy to ID of course but I've been putting them off for some reason (wasn't sure if they were Chihuahuan Ravens, but I can tell by my location, their calls and their acrobatness that they're Common Ravens--woulda been easier to just look at their bills through binoculars but I guess I wanted more of a challenge)

Common Raven attacking a Red-tailed Hawk:

Common Raven attacking an American Kestrel:

The Kestrel finally had enough:

I saw the Red-tailed Hawk perch on a telephone pole (first time that I've seen a hawk perched, which is crazy because I see Red-tailed Hawks everyday around here but they're always just soaring in the sky. By the time I got close enough to take a pic of it it flew off though. I also saw one hovering over a field very low then it touched down and grabbed something and flew off.

I also saw another Western Scrub-Jay today.

EagleCam

2006-04-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

My sister Jenelle emailed me this great link today of streaming Web-cam footage of an Eagle in its natural habitat waiting for her egg to hatch. They predict it should hatch by middle of next week, the 25th to the 27th. Check it out, there's even sound!

http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife/

ScrubJay

2006-04-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

I went to bike back to the open fields where I saw the lawrence's goldfinches but tractors were there mowing everything down. There were nice tall weeds, grass and flowers for miles, but now it's mostly mowed down.

Anyway, I decided to bike around looking for new spots and about 6 and a half miles later I found this nice little area. And I spotted a new bird! My first "Jay", A Western Scrub-Jay:

I found a way to the top of the hill. I have to around to the side and take a winding dirt road up it, so I'll be going back soon to look for more birds and get a better vantage point.

RedTailedHawk

2006-04-18T21:28:00.000-07:00

The weather was finally sane so I went out today and identified and photographed 2 new species.

First, a Red-tailed Hawk (southwestern) flew low enough for me to identify and capture with my digital camera's weak zoom!

And I saw some Lawrence's Goldfinches:

I also got a clearer pic of a Lesser Goldfinch:

WesternMeadowlarks

2006-04-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I went and finally took some better of pics Western Meadowlarks today. They were easy to find because of their distinctive songs.

AmericanWigeon

2006-04-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

I saw some ravens yesterday and today but not sure which ones exactly. Mockingbirds were chasing them away, it was pretty funny. I also walked into my kitchen and found a house sparrow was in it and it then tried flying back out and after a couple attempts of slamming into the window it made it alright.

My online buddy Gretchen was nice enough to point out to me that what I thought was a mallard is actually an American Wigeon:

NewBirds

2006-04-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back after not having an internet connection for a couple weeks. But I've been in bird heaven. Everything I hoped would happen, happend! :)

I must have seen about 20 new birds (17 of which i was able to identify) And luckily I bought a digital camera so I was able to get pictures!

I finally went to the lake on march 25th and saw a lot of new birds.

American Coots:

Mallards and Domestic Ducks:

Brewer's Blackbirds:

Swan (Chinese) Geese:

Great-tailed Grackles:

Ruddy Ducks:

Canada Geese:

Then the next day I went found 3 more birds in my neighborhood. First, in my yard I found some House Finches:

Then I went to an open field about a mile away from my house and got to see Red-winged Blackbirds!

I had just decided to go exploring around to see if I could find any cool birds around the city and sure enough I started seeing them. I've learned to become much more alert and sensitive to any movements and sounds and it's been paying off.

In another field I saw a flock of Western Meadowlarks but i could only snag a picture of one flying away. I tried following them around for an hour to try to get a better look but they just kept flying away from me. They really didn't wanna be seen! I'll get em next time:

On my way home I noticed a possible small raptor perched on a tree. So I tried to get closer to take pics. It kept its eye on me and as i followed it it kept flying to different perch locations. Sure enough, it WAS my first bird-of-prey sighting, a small American Kestrel:

Well, the Kestrel was my first 'perched' bird-of-prey. I've seen lots of soaring hawks. I'm pretty sure they were Red-tailed Hawks. Next time I see them i'll know.

So anyway, the next day I went back to the lake and i'm super glad I did because I was lucky enough to see my first "exotic bird" a solitary "Egyptian Goose"!

It was very friendly and walked right up to me to look at me. It moved very slowly and quietly and was eating grass. Super beautiful bird that I couldn't believe was even there. Definitely one of my favorites. Nobody else around even seemed to notice it.

About an hour later I saw what appears to be my first Hybrid! It seems to be part Swan Goose and part Bar-headed Goose. I'm not really sure though:

It was the only one there like it and it had these brown bars on it's head. Weird!

I also think i saw a cormorant or loon but it was too far out in the lake and kept diving nonstop and popping up like 50 feet away each time and I had to go home. I'm sure i'll see more next time when I can stay longer.

That week continued to be great because a couple days later I saw 3 more new birds. My first Goldfinches. Lesser Goldfinches:

Then I ventured over near the local airport where there's some buisnesses with nice lawns with lots of big hanging trees. And I saw my first White-crowned Sparrows!

I couldn't get any clear pictures of them because I only have a 4x optical zoom and they just didn't want me coming near them no matter how stealth I tried to be about it. This is only the second type of Sparrow i've seen so far (the other is the House Sparrows that I couldn't avoid seeing if I tried)

And in the same area that I saw the White-crowned Sprarrows I started noticing Black Phoebes! They kept calling and flying on this church's roof and sign and also were in the hanging tree branches and even walking around on the ground:

I loved those birds so much so I went back over there the following day to see them more and they were still there. And on my way back home I noticed 2 Band-tailed Pigeons:

I saw my first hummingbird a couple houses down on some red flowers growing on a tree. But it took off too quick for me to identify or take pictures of. But on April 1st I went to my sisters house in Reseda and saw a bunch more humming birds. One flew right up to my face while i was standing in her backyard but by the time I turned my camera on it was gone. And the rest were in other people's backyards so I couldn't get any good shots. Hmm, a 4x optical zoom just isn't enough for birding! My next cam will have 2 to 3 times that zoom for sure. A remote controlled shutter would also be nice :)

Anyway, while at my sister's house I saw my first Warbler! A Yellow-rumped Warbler:

I also saw one the next day from my yard! (Fortunately, my bincoluars can zoom a hundred times better than my camera)

It was a lot of work trying to identify all these new birds. I was overwhelmed by the amount of them that were coming at my newbie eyes. And all I had was my one Sibley's Field Guide since I didn't have an internet connection. But it really came through for me. I also used my notepad and pen out in the field which really helped me identify the birds once they were gone. And once I was back online the good members of birdforum helped me confirm a few ID's too, so big thanks to them!

My life-list now has 23 birds

I don't mean to sound like a "list freak". It definitely is fun putting new birds on my list but the most fun is just being out there in nature and looking at birds through my binoculars--not my camera. It was a ton of fun and i've learned a lot. Can't wait to go birding again!

NewCamera

2006-03-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

I ordered a new digital camera from beachcamera.com so I can take pics of birds and post them now. It's a 5 megapixel with a 4x optical zoom. Should do the job until I can afford a digital SLR or something with more powerful lenses and optical zoom.

I also ordered the book "Sibley's Birding Basics" on amazon.com to help me ID birds better.

MourningDove

2006-03-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

I had plans to go to the lake but it's raining too hard...

A Mourning Dove perched on a telephone wire outside my bedroom window long enough for me to positively identify it. I can also see some gulls hovering over a nearby school but they're too far away to see clearly right now.

Hopefully it will start getting interesting soon :P

StarlingAndPigeon

2006-03-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

I've identified two more common birds. The "European Starling" and the "Rock Pigeon".

The Starling was identified in a similar way to how I identified the House Sparrow. I first looked in my field guide and didn't see a clear match so I looked online for silhouettes of birds and a Starling's silhouette matched the shape. Then I looked in my field guide under Starlings but it still didn't look like the bird as i've seen it, at least as far as plumage. However, the description text described it exactly, as well as the flight shape (the square tail especially) So I decided to type "starling" into images.google.com and sure enough it turned up an exact match.

I also owe it to my new birding pal Gretchen, that I met on myspace.com and have been chatting with on AOL Instant Messenger, for mentioning that Starlings and House Sparrows are the most common "pest" birds--which lead me to think that the second most common bird I see around here probably is a Starling. So that helped me narrow it down a lot.

This isn't to discredit the field guide I have. It's excellent. I just like to be sure i've got the right bird before I add it to my life list. So google and other resources really come in handy.

The second bird I identified today was as easy as the Crow was. I already knew it was a "Pigeon" and I've heard that they were called "Rock Doves" but Gretchen also mentioned to me that they are now referred to as "Rock Pigeons", or commonly just "Pigeons". Wikipedia's Definition has some good info on the naming.

Other than that I've just been learning more about how to identify birds by their songs. I've also started my Life-List which I will constantly update.

HouseSparrow

2006-02-27T16:44:00.000-08:00

I finally positively identified the most common bird around my town. It was a "House Sparrow" both the male and female.

I figured it was a Sparrow but when I looked in my field guide under Sparrows it just wasn't showing a good enough match. So I tried using images.google.com to search for sparrow pics and right away I see a match; a "house sparrow". Then I looked in the index of my Field Guide for it and found out that it was in there but not under the Sparrows section! It was all alone in another section of the guide called "Old World Sparrows"

NorthernMockingbird

2006-02-22T20:51:00.000-08:00

I've positively identified my first bird! I'm sure this is only exciting to me since the bird is a common bird.. an adult Northern Mockingbird.

I spent the last week learning more about how to get birds to come to my yard through serving different kinds of food and I put out some apple-halfs.

So I took the following notes:
-Was alone
-Had a tail longer than its body
-Had about about a half-inch long black beak
-Was gray from head to tail with white stripes on its wings
-Had a tan looking belly
-Had greenish/yellow eyes with big black pupils
-Had a black eyeline
-Had long black legs/feet
-Ate a piece of fruit

I wasn't sure exactly what it was so I looked online for silhouettes of common birds and recognized it as a Mocking Bird. My field guide confirmed it was a "Northern Mocking Bird"

I was pretty happy because i've yet to identify these 2 other super common birds that keep coming to my yard. They look like some kind of Sparrow. One looks like a black-throated Sparrow but is missing a couple field marks and I just can't figure it out yet. It seems like a hybrid or something but this bird is the most common around here. I just don't see it in my field guide. I'm sure i'll figure it out.

Today I also positively identified my second bird, an American Crow. That was as easy as just going straight to my field guide and looking in the crow section (Since I knew it was a crow)... There were only 2 kinds of Crow: an American Crow and a Northern Crow. They look exactly the same but the northern crow has a different call and is less common. And it didn't match up with what a Raven is like.

I saw another bird today that's pretty common around here. I wrote notes on it but i'm still trying to identify. So, all and all it was a great birding day for this complete newbie.

BinocularsArrived

2006-02-10T23:52:00.000-08:00

My binoculars came today! Let the fun begin :)

OrderedBinoculars

2006-02-06T22:33:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in a couple weeks but don't worry I'm still here :)

I was researching and saving up for binoculars and I finally found the ones that fit my budget and I ordered them today! Bushnell Legend 8x42 Porro Prism binoculars. They were only $99.00 on eagleoptics.com The list price was about $205.00 for these and they were the nicest binoculars I could find for for under 100 dollars. They're Nitrogen Purged and Waterproof/Fogproof, fully multi-coated, 15mm eye relief, twist-up eye cups, 12ft close focus, 24oz, BaK-4 porro prism, have a life time warranty... They even shipped them today too, so I should have them soon.

My Bird Watching for Dummies book came about a week ago and I've read about half of it so far. It's been very informative. I also got my first field guide the other day The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America with a turtleback cover on ebay.com. I plan to get more field guides soon too.

I've now seen every episode of The Life of Birds and I'm sure I'll watch them again and again. I also got to see Winged Migration: The Making Of which was pretty interesting to see how they did that movie.

I have also had two very vivid dreams in the last week of me being out birding that left me with a very good feeling about this new hobby of mine.

I'll be posting again soon when my binoculars arrive.

BirdMovies

2006-01-20T09:56:00.000-08:00

I just finnished watching the movie March of the Penguins, it was great.

In the last couple days I've watched the first 4 episodes of the BBC series The Life of Birds by Sir David Attenborough. It's very well done and informative.

This morning on the National Geographic Channel I saw a good show called Living Wild. Sea Bird Citadels which documented Thick-billed Murres

Other than that I'm still waiting for my Bird Watching for Dummies book to arrive and I've been going out trying to find book stores to purchase field guides from but so far I haven't had any luck. I'm used to buying books online but I wanted to try to get a field guide from a book store so I wouldn't have to wait for shipping because the last few books I ordered took about 2-3 weeks to get here. I went to the two closests book stores but one was closed in the middle of the day for no apparent reasons and the other was turned into an adult bookstore. I'm going to try another one that's a little further and also the local library.

I've been posting to BirdForum.net and reading about optics online to figure out which binoculars to get, which will hopefully be next week.

I've also been feeding birds bread out in my front yard. There's a birds nest attached to the roof on the side of my house and I put a big bowl of water down and sometimes the birds drink from it. I plan to get some bird seed soon and build some bird feeders/bathes in my yard.

About

2006-01-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

I started this blog to chronicle my new hobby of Birding (Bird Watching). Click Here if you don't know what Birding is about.

My name is Ryan and I was born and raised in Orange County, California. I currently reside in San Bernardino, California.

I just got into it only 3 days ago (January 11th 2006) after searching the internet for new ways to have fun outdoors. I had this feeling that I'd be hooked for good so I started this blog. Right now I know next to nothing about birds but i'm looking forward to learning about them.

In the past few days I've been researching Birding and Ornithology on the Web and I ordered the book Bird Watching for Dummies from amazon.com and I watched the documentary Winged Migration, which was great. I plan to get some binoculars and field guides soon.

Before I even knew that Birding was a serious hobby I took some pictures of birds in my old neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. I lived with my great grandmother for 4 years and we'd feed birds that would come to our apartment window. She loved of birds and always fed them birdseed. I remember her son (my grandpa) used to have a bird feeder in his backyard. My mom used to take me to the duck pond to feed the ducks as a child.. so bird love must run in our family :)

Here are some pictures I took in February of 2004 when I was still living in Los Angeles:

(NOTE: Click on the images for more viewing options and a description of the image)

I went out to take pictures with my new digital camera and this hummingbird nest was the first thing I photographed. Lucky find huh? There were at least 2 hummingbirds. Love em.