Back to more fun at the San Diego Bird Festival! Last time I talked about all the wood duck action at Santee Lakes. I did get quite a few photos of wood ducks, but the main bird species seen at Santee Lakes (and my hotel) was the American coot. While we were at Santee, families came to "feed the duc...

Okay, how can someone look at this photo and still say that birding is geeky? Seriously, going up a mountain with your digiscoping equipment is geeky? That's my buddy Clay Taylor from Swarovski. He and Bruce Webb took me out in Utah to help me get to my goal of 500 birds. Here's a lifer Clark's nutc...

Here is a post from the American Birding Convention for my dear husband, Non Birding Bill: I stayed at the Cliff Lodge in Snowbird, Utah for the American Birding Association Convention. As you can see in the above photo, they keep a tidy lawn. What's the secret to this well kept lawn? Why the lawn s...

One of the target birds for me on this trip was an America dipper. I've always wanted to see one of these guys and no, not because in the photos it looks like the dullest bird ever. It's super cool. First, you look for dippers in this type of stream. They actually move around the water's edge and ev...

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 4am, got my stuff together and headed out to Rapids Lake Education and Visitor Center for the Minnesota BioBlitz (you try to see document as much wildlife as you can in a 24 hour period). It's southwest of the Twin Cities on a bluff along the Minnesota River. It's r...

Last fall, I went on a tear to get rid of some buckthorn and start replenishing the woods with bee and bird friendly plants (with mostly native plants) in Mr. Neil's woods. I've tried to make a sincere effort to learn my wildflowers and if I've learned anything, it's that if I find a flower very att...

I'm trying hard to focus on the good. I'm incredibly swamped--I still have a post left from the World Series of Birding but there are articles to finish, emails to deal with, trips to lead, blogs to write, etc. I had every intent to just do my time banding at Carpenter this morning and then come hom...

I like how the song starts kind of half-assed and then gets more gumption when a neighboring song sparrow joins in....

Winter storm warning starts today, April 10 at 4pm! We might be getting 4 - 6 inches of snow sometime within the next 48 hours. I shouldn't complain...Duluth is supposed to get blizzard conditions (not blizzard like, just blizzard). While I was checking the traps yesterday, I heard my first field sp...

Hey! If you need a sandhill crane and or waterfowl fix, the National Geographic Crane Cam live at Rowe Sanctuary is up and running. You're probably asking yourself, "How much longer is this chick going to go on about Nebraska???" This will be the last post and then later this week I'll be opening up...