Travel & Birding Blog

My Christmas Challenge: Publish A Recipe

December 24, 2009

This post is for my friend June, who is not much of a bird enthusiast but is an enthusiastic foodie. She writes a not-your-every-day food blog over at Mendonfoodie.blogspot.com. Check it out. If you think this person with a larger-than-life personality is just joking, think again. She means every word, every delicious word, and I love [...]

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Watching Gulls at Niagara Falls

December 22, 2009

Cool update: I added a 5 min audio recording of Peter giving us gull neophytes a tutorial on the Thayer’s >>> Kumlien’s >>> Iceland Gull cline.
Watching gulls. That’s what birders in the Great Lakes are wont to do in winter. And the place to do it, at least around here (globally speaking) is Niagara Falls.
Niagara Parks describes [...]

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It’s A Sin To Kill A Spark Bird

December 19, 2009

Birders are fond of talking about their “spark bird,” the bird or birding moment that hooked them into the passion of birding. Oddly enough, I remained sans spark bird for quite some time. That is, until a memory was triggered by opening an old photo album.
A little back story: I grew up with nature in my [...]

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Eastern Towhee on Pokamoonshine Mountain, Adirondacks

December 16, 2009

There are many reasons to climb a mountain (check out the top five I printed in my summer post): spectacular views, a good workout, and the wild exhilaration that comes from feeling on top of the world. Mountaintops are quiet, windy places that carry a comforting sense of isolation. Looking down, I feel far out [...]

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BirdsEye: iPhone App for Bird Watching/eBird Users

December 2, 2009

BirdsEye is the first mobile eBird application that helps you easily find birds and locate directions to nearby birding hotspots. BirdsEye was released from the iTunes store on December 2, 2009.

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A New Birding Tradition: First Annual Turkey “Hunt”

November 28, 2009

Life is too easy these days.
Used to be you’d wake up Thanksgiving morning, hunt for a bird, and return home only when you had enough game to feed the children and nearby kinsfolk.
I love the feeling of having earned a meal. Too bad that feeling normally resides in the foggy chambers of my fading memory.
So [...]

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Bird Photography? Yes, I Can. So Can You.

November 24, 2009

I’m not an idiot.
In fact, I pride myself on being able to figure things out when I put my mind to it. I get that from my mom. She tinkers and dings and wrestles and pulls, then all of a sudden, your zipper is fixed, your model is built, your chair is reupholstered, your wallpaper is [...]

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Northern Mockingbird in Mid-Chew

November 23, 2009

Having just returned from an excellent birding trip, I’ve been unusually quiet here. I’m sorry for that. My excuse is technology: I’ve been wrestling with full hard drives, corrupt photos, and a learning curve on image recovery and digital post-processing. Things became so complex, I actually memorized my Apple Care case ID.
Happy to report that [...]

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Food

November 18, 2009

Food. Luscious food. Steaming, heaping piles of food.
My high metabolism comes at a cost. So after a full day’s birding, walking, and talking in the hot Texas sun, I need food. And lots of it.
On Saturday, after spending the morning at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge (where my group racked up about 72 bird species), [...]

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