Posted from Seattle August 1, 2021 Sometimes people say "This is a beautiful day." The comment is usually meant to mean sunny with blue sky, the absolute worst and most boring, unaesthetic conditions possible for photography or nature viewing. To use the latter worldview, we have...
Posted May 20, 2021 from the central Peloncillo Mtns, New Mexico We are down in the Bootheel again. Delia and I went over to Portal, Arizona on May 18th chasing birds and Nature. One of our last stops was Cave Creek Ranch, a beautiful birder's resort with a...
Posted May 1 2021 from Beacon Hill, Seattle, WA We had a nice migration fallout on Beacon Hill today, May 1st, by far the biggest pulse of the year so far. Mainly Yellow-rumped Warblers, but also including Wilson's Warblers, Orange-crowned Warblers, a MacGillivray's Warbler and a...
Posted from Seattle, WA on April 18, 2021 After a winter that featured above-normal precip and lower-than-average temps in key months, Seattle has become a blast furnace—well, maybe people around the country don’t consider temps in the high 70’s to be like a “blast furnace,” –but...
Posted from Seattle on March 6, 2021 This winter we have sauntered out to Granite Creek in hopes of seeing the White-winged Crossbill flock that seems to be stationed there but are not always easy to find-- We dipped on them thrice, but each time were...
Posted from Seattle, WA on Jan 23, 2021 I was worried and fretful about this trip to the BioResearch Ranch, which we knew would be in the middle of a severe drought that has settled over much of the west, with the Bootheel being among the...
Posted September 23, 2020 from Upper Post Office Canyon I didn't know Bears kissed so much! When our young dynamic researcher friends Emily and John suggested putting a game-cam at the wildlife tank just up-canyon from the house here, I thought, "Oh, that's nice, maybe they'll get some great...
Posted through smoke on sad anniversary day of September 11, 2020 Birds, especially the Neotropicals--the birds that migrate south to the Tropics every fall--love to take baths, regardless of the weather. But as smoke today descended on Butyl Creek (our 12-foot recirculating creek on Beacon Hill)...
Posted from the Central Peloncillo Mtns, New Mexico, May 19, 2020 Delia and I arrived late in Tucson, too late to bird the Airport Wash. But we noticed a sign of the times as we headed out: seven Javelinas headed out for a night on the town. The...
Posted May 9, 2020 Hi all, Many of the Yellow-rumped and Orange-crowned Warblers seem to have already departed for points north or up. (Many Yellow-rumps high in the Cascades, Orange-crowneds as far north as the Brooks Range in Alaska.) The next wave has arrived, Here is one of...
Posted from Seattle, WA April 10 2020 Here is a male Yellow-rumped Warbler in Butyl Creek, April 11, 2020 This Wilson's Warbler, bathing on the Creek on April 27th, illustrates a pet peeve of wildlife artists. If you painted this bird in the pose shown, everybody,...
posted from Seattle, WA on March 26, 2020 The photo is a bit haunting and emotional for me. It could never have been taken in 2019. The Newsstand is gone. Right through to the last day that the Ed Newbold Wildlife Store was open this March,...
Posted from Seattle, WA on December 1, 2019. Some may suspect that Delia and I are very proud of how many birds we get in our tiny yard on Beacon Hill, which we credit to the fact that we don't mow or hardscape, that we seem...
Posted October 6 2019 from Seattle, WA I never thought much about the name Kinglet until I started seeing Kinglets take a bath in our recirculating creek. When you see these birds foraging in the woods, they look like little gray birds, but when they...
Posted from Seattle, WA on September 14, 2019 Anyone caught speeding is subject to having their cap snatched. This Barred Owl was on a Speed Limit sign near Hansville, WA in September. Barred Owls have been involved in many incidents of cap-stealing but I'm not...
Posted from Seattle, WA on July 11, 2019 I moved to Seattle in 1976, and I didn't come because I heard it was smokey in the summer. I am delighted that we've had normal or even above-normal rains so far in July, and I...
Posted May 2, 2019 from Seattle, WA Birds love to bathe and no longer have much opportunity in urban areas where all the runoff and most of the creeks are sent immediately down manholes and shipped to West Point, i.e., Seattle. So we provide the birds with...
Posted on April 13, 2019 from Seattle WA. We just got back yesterday from New Mexico. One good thing that happened down there is I finally got a shot of a Lucifer Hummingbird that I actually like and that does this handsome little hummer justice. The first shot...
Posted February 8, 2019 from Seattle, WA Butyl Creek has been a busy place in the last few weeks, what with the Great Miserable 2019 Beacon Hill Tennessee Warbler Stakeout and various snowstorms. Photo by Ollie Oliver The stakeout brought at least 40 or 50 people to the...
Posted from Seattle, WA Feb. 2 2019 A little bird that breeds way North of here and normally winters way South of here is visiting the backyard, but those visits have at times been painfully and excruciatingly sparse and while many birders have seen the bird,...
Posted from the central Peloncillo Mountains, New Mexico, Jan 2, 2019 The shot above shows Coatis frolicking in the snow across from the house here in the Peloncillo Mountains of New Mexico, which are located in the extreme SW "bootheel" of New Mexico. Coatis are related...
Posted from Seattle, November 17, 2018, (updated periodically In a moment of bravado I paraphrased a song and wrote, "The Creek goes on forever and the party never ends." Butyl Creek that is, the recirculating creek in our backyard. Well, the party is still on for...