Aug 25 2010
Let me start by answering my own question posed in the title of this post: are birders really buying 92% of duck stamps sold? Almost assuredly not. I hate it when people manipulate factoids to advance an agenda and I don’t want to sink to that level. But I’m willing to take a little heat [...]
Jun 08 2010
NB: For the best video experience, I highly recommend hitting “play,” then clicking on the 360p button that appears in the lower right of the video player and choosing 480p instead. Also click the adjacent box with the four outward pointing arrows to go full screen. At the end, just hit the same box, which [...]
Apr 12 2010
I’ve joked that Facebook has eaten both my blog and my Twitter stream and you know, it’s hardly a joke. In contrast to this dear old blog, which I’ve really enjoyed, but also wrestled with, I find that I post regularly and often on Facebook. Of course, the posts tend to be shorter and often [...]
Mar 09 2010
No big backstory here…just a beautiful little bird, singing his heart out, an image that seems appropriate for the gorgeous early spring weather we are having today, though it will still be another month before Prairie Warblers return to our area. The buzzy, ascending song of Prairie Warbler is the first “fancy” song I remember [...]
Mar 08 2010
The second of my photos that appears in the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America is one of the big ones, spanning two pages, a treatment afforded only 3 shots in each book. It appears across pages ii & iii. But the photograph has to share space–lots of space–with two text boxes [...]
Mar 04 2010
I’m beginning with the first of my bird photos that appears in the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America, hereafter simply, Eastern. It appears on page i. Obviously, it’s a male Scarlet Tanager. It was photographed 19 May 2009 near Georgetown, DE. When I accepted the assignment to provide 30 [...]
Mar 02 2010
A few days ago, something besides another foot of snow fetched up against our doorstep. Two big brown heavy boxes, all the way from Indianapolis. Sure enough, they were the brand-new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America and the similarly titled but quite distinct, Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and [...]
Sep 24 2009
I’m just back from the 2009 Midwest Birding Symposium, which was without doubt one of the best organized and coordinated events of its kind, ever. I kept pretty busy, giving a presentation on the uses of digital technology in birding, successfully chasing a Kirtland’s Warbler that turned up nearby, burning the midnight karaoke oil, and [...]
Jul 27 2009
On Saturday, July 26th, I attended a half-day photography workshop hosted by Wil & Donna Hershberger, a couple of dedicated wildlife photographers and sound recordists who live in eastern West Virginia. The workshop was held at Lilypons, a unique nursery for aquatic plants just northwest of Washington, DC. I went expecting to concentrate on water [...]
Jul 24 2009
Self-portrait by Matthew Sarver Good news for all of you who enjoy well-written, thoughtful, authoritative, and nicely-illustrated blog posts (and if that’s you, what are you doing here?). My buddy Matt Sarver has been cultivating his web presence, including launching a new blog, appropriately called The Modern Naturalist. Matt’s a great birder, naturally, but he’s also [...]
