Bird Photography Weekly

Since I am going to be in Phoenix for business, I decided to take a few vacation days  to visit with some friends and go birding.  I have some target birds I hope to see, not the least among them are those pesky quails.  I will be going out with Melody Kehl again.  I’ll [...]

A Fast Escape

I jerked my head around and froze.
DANGER!
Alarm bells were going off in my head.  Thrashing sounds among the trees are never a good thing, regardless of where you might be on the planet. I was standing in the middle of the road, searching for what could have possibly made the sounds when the trees up [...]

Bird Photography Weekly

The rain was falling in buckets, yet a tiny Snowy-bellied Hummingbird sat tenaciously on the top of a Heliconia.  He would make a foray out occasionally, but then return to his perch, point his bill to the sky and sit for long periods.  I stood on the deck pondering this then wandered out [...]

Blue Skies, Nuthin’ but Blue Skies

We all stared at the flat blue expanse of the firmament. Not a cloud, not a wisp, heck, very few contrails even.  We battled eye floaties, crinks in our necks, and sunburn hoping today was the big one; when the flow of thousands of Broad-winged Hawks would come down from their summer forest homes [...]

Moonwalking Manakins

“Is this the one that does the moonwalk?”
I looked over at an older woman standing next to me and shrugged with a little head-shake. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. The only moonwalk I knew of was Michael Jackson’s. I tracked the cherry red head through the gloom [...]

Northern Wheatear in DeKorte Park

Northern Wheatears rarely visit the metro area. They breed in the high Arctic, Alaska and Greenland.  (This bird is of the Greenland race, see how buffy it is.)  I missed a Wheatear last fall at Garret Mountain and by the time I was able to get to the Connecticut bird; it had moved on.  [...]

Wordless Wednesday

Big Changes Coming

I have made the decision (finally, after talking about it for at least a year.) to collapse my 2 blogs.  Basically nothing will change here other than the name (in the short-term), but the old Murmuring Trees will go away (as soon as I can make a hard copy of the entire thing.)  As you [...]

Bird Photography Weekly

I had had enough.  I was tired from the morning hike and riding in a van on the twisty, turny road was making me nauseous.  Besides, I was leaving the next day and wanted to make arrangements and start packing.  So, I stayed behind on the last afternoon tour, knowing full well that I [...]

Trogon Love

Will ya look at that bad boy.  Total fave.  There is something about the Violaceous Trogon that I just love.  Maybe it’s all that yellow. I didn’t go to Panama with any target birds in mind.  But once I got an eye-full of this guy, I wanted to see more and more Trogons.  When [...]