2019 Calendar

My 2019 calendar arrived in the mail yesterday. The adjective doesn’t merely indicate possession; it’s my calendar because I created it. I started making a calendar five or six years ago to share the fruits my burgeoning photography hobby with friends. I also use it as a way to challenge myself to keep finding new birds and keep improving my photography skills them.

I took the cover picture of the cedar waxwing while hiking in Glacier National Park this summer. It was our first trip after our retirements. I was thrilled to get this shot for a few reasons. I rarely see them around here, I think they’re gorgeous, and I missed a great chance summer before last to get a picture of two of them munching on berries in the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

In addition to the cedar waxing photo, which is also the bird for May, two other photos came from our trip out West. I saw the American dipper in Glacier NP, and the Western tanager outside Grand Tetons NP. Three more of the photos for this calendar came from my trip last May to the Biggest Week in American Birding, and another three from a trip to Florida back in February with our friend Debbie. The remaining three shots were from other trips before 2017.

This is the first time I’m offering the calendar for sale through my website. I was gratified by the response I got. I’m also very happy with the job my new vendor did. If you ordered a calendar, thank you! It’s on its way to you and I hope you enjoy it. If you didn’t order one, you’ll have another chance next year. Watch this space!

Man vs. Squirrel

What you see here represents the culmination of months of frustration and much trial-and-error. But now I can declare victory over an animal with a brain the size of a walnut. And although I sometimes have at least a dozen squirrels scavenging around the grounds under my bird feeders, there was only one who constantly defeated by baffles and found its way up on to the feeders. It didn’t matter where I put the baffle. If it was too close to the ground, this squirrel would simply leap completely over it, and then climb the pole to the promised land. If I put it too high, the squirrel could jump up to the bottom of the lowest-hanging tube feeder, and climb up from there. It was really quite impressive.

I bought some anti-bird spikes and super-glued them to the baffle, thinking that would do the trick. I was wrong. Like some featured performer from the Cirque du Soleil, it jumped in one continuous motion from the ground to a two-inch square space not covered by the spikes, and from that space on to the pole above the baffle. From there, the buffet was a sure thing.

Fortunately for my obsession, Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man. A few lengths of the right sized PVC, a connector and a clamp — and Voila!. The birds now feast away while even the super-squirrel must wait on the ground below, picking up the crumbs.

You’ll notice the big feeder at the top is listing a bit. It tilts 23 degrees, identical to the earth’s axial tilt. I’ll rotate it from season to season, to match the earth’s relationship to the sun. Please do not believe either of those last two sentences. I just completely made that stuff up. But it sounds good, doesn’t it?

Actually, the earth’s axial tilt really is about 23 degrees, which is why we have the changes of seasons. But that’s got nothing to do with my bird feeders, which are on duty winter, spring, summer and fall. Just like those damned squirrels.

Nonpareil

I don’t normally take pictures of birds at feeders, but I think this one is just too good to pass up!

Those colors aren’t Photoshopped or manipulated in any way. That’s just how a male painted bunting looks. There is not a more colorful bird in the United States. You’ll find them in the Southeast and South-central U.S. during the breeding season. They have the good sense to spend the winters from the southern tip of Florida down through Central America.

I remember the first time I ever saw a painted bunting. We were vacationing on Hilton Head in March with our friends Bob and Barbara. I was walking by the sliding glass door to the deck when a flash of color at a feeder caught my eye. I screamed, bringing my wife, Bob and Barbara hurrying to me to see how I might have injured myself. My wife gasped — the sight of the painted bunting had taken her breath away!

The French name for this member of the finch family is “nonpareil,” which means “unequaled.” No argument here.

I took this picture last February at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, about two weeks after the annual birding festival there. Although we got a few very nice shots, there were disappointingly few birds there that week. The week before, the Space X company had launched a rocket from the southern tip of Merritt Island, a spot named Cape Canaveral. Seems our fine feathered friends didn’t dig the noise and vibrations, and they decided to spend the rest of the winter in a quieter part of Florida.

The neighborhood gang

I have birds at my backyard feeders pretty much all day long. On any day, I’ll see up to two dozen different kinds of birds.

I’m lucky to have the kind of backyard birds love. It’s fairly large with lots of trees and shrubs in and around and open enough to make getting in and out very easy. The getting in and out easy is important, not only because cats sometimes wander through in search of a meal, but also because hawks are regular visitors. Several times over the years, I’ve watched from the bay window in our kitchen with equal parts horror and fascination as a predator like this Cooper’s Hawk swooped in and grabbed a mourning dove or robin. Nature can be as brutal as it is beautiful.

I was sitting at our kitchen table looking out that bay window one fall morning a few years ago when I saw this hawk perched in the dogwood tree next to our house. It was a cold and blustery day, which helps explain why the bird is puffed up (birds do that to insulate themselves), why its feathers are ruffled, and why I am inside my house. I got my camera, and shot this from the kitchen table through the bay window. I love how imperious raptors appear when they’re perching. I also marvel at how clean my bay window must have been to allow a shot like this.

If you’re interested in attracting birds to your yard, here are a few basics that might help. Keep feeders far enough from trees and roofs to prevent squirrels from jumping on them. Use baffles—I use witch’s hat baffles—on the polls supporting your feeders to discourage squirrels from climbing up from the ground. Or if you have the budget, buy a feeder like the Brome Squirrel-buster. They have an adjustable, weight-sensitive spring that prevents squirrels and heavier birds such as crows from eating any of the seed. Birds also need water, so they’ll love a bird bath.

My wife jokes that we have the best-fed birds in Atlanta, and that our children would go hungry before my birds did. For the record, both of our children have always maintained a healthy weight. But I do love feeding the birds so that I can sit at my bay window and watch the show.

Bluebird

The leaves are disappearing quickly from the trees, which brings to mind this picture I made four or five autumns ago. I was on my front porch, and this bluebird was perched in the huge willow oak that graces our front yard. I love the gold leaves framing the bird’s bright blue and cinnamon colors.

There are many beautiful North American birds we rarely, if ever, get to see here in Atlanta (I’m looking at you, Baltimore Oriole and Scarlet Tanager). But no bird is more gorgeous than the Eastern Bluebird. I’m happy to say they are regulars at the feeders in my yard. I keep one feeder stocked with already-shelled sunflower seeds, because I know it’s their favorite. I also keep a nesting box for them, and although wrens and chickadees often beat them to it, I’ll get a family of bluebirds every few springs or so. I’ll even buy dried meal worms and put them in a special feeder when the bluebird babies hatch.

Bluebirds are year-’round residents here in Atlanta, and seeing the bright sunlight on their bright blue backs still a dazzles me and makes my heart glad. Here’s looking at you, kid.

Where the birds are

One aspect of birding I love is the travel. If you want to see birds, you’ve got to go where the birds are. So birding is a wonderful way to to see new places, and to revisit old favorites. One spot I never tire of is the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, FL.

A note here about this spot’s namesake. He was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist for the Des Moines Register, and an ardent conservationist who helped expand he National Wildlife Refuge system. He also helped found and was the first president of the National Wildlife Federation.

The first time I went to Ding Darling, I added about a dozen new birds to my life list. And even if I don’t see a new bird there, I love seeing the egrets, herons, roseate spoonbills and all their friends. Southwest Florida is one of the best regions in the nation for birding; especially in the winter. Not far from Ding Darling is the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a National Audubon Society Sanctuary that is home to the largest nesting colony of federally endangered Wood Storks in the country.

If you’d like to recommend a birding spot, I’d love to hear from you!

If I had to pick a favorite....

I’m sometimes asked if I have a favorite bird or kind of bird. I don’t. But if I were forced to choose, I’d probably go with hummingbirds. They’re the only birds that can hover or fly backwards. They are small but mighty; ferocious defenders of their nests and territories and able to fly hundreds of miles over water during migration. And if you travel outside the Eastern U.S. — where the ruby-throated hummingbird is pretty much all you’ll see— you can find hummingbirds with all sorts of brilliant, iridescent colors, such as the Purple-throated Mountain Gem pictured below. I took this photo on our 2012 trip to Costa Rica, when we were traveling with our dear friends Debbie and Eugene. This little guy resting a few feet away from some feeders set up near the Monteverde National Park entrance.

More than 600 kinds of birds live in Costa Rica, many of which never come as far north as the U.S. But even if you’re not a birder, Costa Rica is a wonderful place to vacation. It’s easy to get to, friendly, not expensive, and all kinds of beautiful with mountains and beaches and cloud forests and year-’round warm weather. I cherish every memory of our 12 day trip there, but especially the fun I had sharing the vacation with people I love so much.

It started with the Booby

My photography passion started in 2007 when our dear friend Barb offered us a chance to join her and her daughter on the trip to the Galapagos Islands. She knew I loved birds, and knew the Galapagos was a special place for birders. There are 24 birds endemic to the Galapagos—they don’t live anywhere else. Famous among them are the so-called Darwin’s Finches, the birds that Darwin found on his famous trip to the Galapagos, and which figure prominently is his theory of natural selection.

But perhaps the best-known of the Galapagos birds is the blue-footed booby. I wanted to enhance my love of birding by taking pictures of them, so I bought a good DSLR camera with two interchangeable lenses for the trip. I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so I should get a really good camera. And the blue-footed booby was the first bird I saw there.

The boobies have no natural predators, so you can walk right up to them. A booby chick walked up to me, the way a puppy might. And if you’re really lucky, you will get to see it raining boobies. That’s what the local naturalists call it when a flock of the birds hover about 50 feet over the water, then dive straight down, hitting the water with loud “splats,” and catching fish in their open beaks as the swim to the surface.

The Galapagos will always have a special place in my heart. I hope you’re all lucky enough to go there someday.