Category: Uncategorized

Long-billed Dowitcher

Probes like a sewing machine

Breeds in the Arctic

Elegant plumage

Lanky and delicate Stilt

A stately shorebird

Male Red-winged Blackbird

Proclaims his place in life’s web

Classic sound of spring

Straight at me walked

Got down low for good photo

Leopard eye contact

The Ruddy Shelduck

Found at five thousand meters

Sacred to Buddhists

(Tadorna ferruginea)

5,000 meters equals 16,400 feet.  

Northern Waterthrush

Found in still water’s presence

Not thrush. A warbler.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. – Wendell Berry


(photo taken this morning)

A Buddhist dancer

He pulled my beard. I pulled his

Then he motioned “no”

Since, as I mentioned earlier, I was sitting in the front row. This Mani Rimdu dancer came over to me…. and playing to the crowd…… pulled my beard. I pulled his right back. He then kind of secretly shook his finger at me as much to say “don’t do that”. It was all in fun.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Beautiful yet dangerous

Lone person walking

Today’s hike down low

The mountains quietly wait

Footsteps are coming

My hiking buddy, Mary,and I only had about three and a half hours to hike so we hiked near town….The photo was taken at the beginning of the hike…eventually we turned east and the traffic noise disappeared.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Far distance to photograph

First for the county

These photos are not the greatest, but they did serve to document the identity of the bird which turned out to be the first one ever recorded in the county.  The normal range  for the Lesser Black-backed Gull is primarily the East and Gulf Coasts and some of the Great Lakes.  All of the images were hand held and taken at a considerable distance and cropped to 100%