Birds of Iguazu: Green-winged Saltator

Green-winged Saltator
Loi Suites - Iguazu, Argentina
May 2013

Birds of Iguazu: Plush-crested Jay

Birds of the Masai Mara

Photographed in the Masai Mara
Kenya, February 2012

Lazy Birding

By the Pool - Sheraton Addis Ababa

Sunrise at Selman Ranch

Selman Ranch
Harper County, OK
February 2009

Waxing Cedars at the Selman Ranch

Cedar Waxwings - Selman Ranch
Harper County, Oklahoma
March 2010 ©trryan

Tympanuchus pallidicinctus

Lesser Prairie Chicken

Tympanuchus pallidicinctus

Photographed at Selman Ranch

Harper County, Oklahoma

April 2008

photo & image design ©trryan

It's a Nice Day for Some White Birding

Ring-billed gull - second year

Oklahoma City Audubon's Tuesday morning birders meet every week in the fall and winter come rain, snow, shine, sweeping prairie wind -- or in the case of last Tuesday - a thick blanket of misty fog on a day that promised to be a warm and sunny 71 and never mounted 60.

Ospreys in the mist

A huge flock of unidentified icterids course the air in Hitchcockian glory

This season is under the expert guidance of naturalist, Oklahoma native plant genius and birder extraordinaire - Bill Diffin. The Tuesday morning birders are lucky to have him and any day birding with Bill Diffin is a good day for the wide-eyed-and-wanting-to-learn.

Osprey and Comorant

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White bird

In a golden cage

On a winter's day

In the rain

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Great Blue Heron and Bobber

Even a day smothered in grey fog and wet mist and with less than ideal conditions for photography.

Franklin's Gull

With the promise of lots of sun, I brought the big guns last Tuesday to the Lake Hefner outing. Even on the sunniest day I am usually less than thrilled with my Canon EF 400 mm f/5.6L despite its enormous popularity and high ratings. The images are never tack sharp; and on a cloudy day - fuggetaboutit!

Osprey caged in gold

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The leaves blow

Cross the long black road

To the darkened skies

In its rage

But the white bird

Just sits in her cage

Unknown

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Common loon a calling

I shot at everything that would sit still long enough for the lens to focus through the mist;

Red-shouldered hawk on mast

remembering that a gray day and a fairly competent digital dark room can work wonders on blurry, blah, rainy day birding images.

Leaping Harris sparrows

Whoever says photography is not art - look again.

Belted kingfisher on snag

And whoever says rainy day birding is not good...eat your heart out...

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The sunsets come

The sunsets go

The clouds Float by

And the Earth Turns slow

And the Young Birds Eyes

Do always Glow

And she must fly

She must fly

She must fly

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White Bird Must Fly

or She will die

She will die

Many thanks to Bill Diffin for 52 species and a great day of birding on Lake Hefner, despite the weather. That's OKC Audubon's Tuesday morning birding at its best!

"White Bird" from David LaFlamme's band Beautiful Day

Voluntourism in Kenya and the Fabulous Flamingos of Lake Nakuru

Storm Clouds and flamingos over Lake Nakuru, Kenya - August 2002

In August of 2002, to celebrate my 40th birthday (11 months and 20 days after the fact) - I took a month off from work and participated in a little voluntourism as a research assistant at Lake Naivasha for Earthwatch's Lakes of the Rift Valley conservation project in Kenya. We lived in tents pitched on the grounds of the Kenyan Wildlife Service on the shores of the lake. It was fantastically down-and-dirty, sleeves-rolled-up, into the muck, dodging black mambas-buffaloes-and-hippos-at-every-turn work from sun up to sun down.

We had one day off - which we dreaded as the work days were thrilling beyond imagination- and all twelve of us volunteers pitched in and paid the local camp staff and research biologists to take us a few hours north and east to Lake Nakuru for a little "safari". Most of our work at Naiviasha was done on the hoof and we really did have to "run for our lives" quite a few times -- so it was nice to hang-out in Nakuru four feet off the ground in a couple of fast moving jeeps for the day.
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"the perils of a middle-of-the night trip in the dark to the distant outhouse would soon prove to impact our nightly Tusker Beer consumption"
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Waterbucks and Pelicans - Voluntourism and Camping on Lake Naivasha

Living in slightly more populated Lake Naivasha we had our daily fill of cape buffaloes, giraffes, hippos, zebras, and waterbucks - all of which moved regularly through our compound and would often graze the grassy lawn after we had gone to bed (the perils of a middle-of-the night trip in the dark to the distant outhouse would soon prove to impact our nightly Tusker Beer consumption). But eventually we longed for a glimpse of the more charismatic megafauna of that part of Africa - the lions and rhinos and leopards and elephants that frequented the park at Lake Nakura -- we would not be disappointed.

Wading Black Rhinoceros and Pink Flamingos

The highlight of that incredible day for all of us would prove to be the flamingos. Lake Nakuru is a shallow alkaline lake that is home to one of the great bird spectacles on earth. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pink flamingos, both the lesser and greater species, flock to the lake to feed on cyanobacteria commonly called blue-green algae. I can't even begin to describe what it was like to happen upon this impossible sea of pink birds. And these old film exposures from the days before I had real photographic equipment don't do much justice either.

At the end of the day, enormous black storm clouds moved in over the lake without warning and we were able to capture a few shots as the last of the sunlight lit up these hundreds of thousands of pink birds in a haunting swath of light before the storm raged over the lake (top photo).

Urban Birding By Butt

Great Egret - Lake Hefner - Oklahoma City

Oh the places you can go - when you have a kayak! There are some moments when the grace and subtle beauty of nature is better captured without a big, long lens - this is one of them.

In Oklahoma City, you can try urban birding by kayak every Tuesday at Lake Hefner via the fantastic OKC Kayak. For the definitive source of kayaking in Oklahoma check out the Kayak Oklahoma blog.

This is Oklahoma!

Bird by Bird: A Celebration of New River with Pablo Neruda

Now
to look for birds!

The high iron branches
in the forest,
the dense
fecundity of the soil,
the whole world
is wet,
rain or dew

shines, a tiny
star
in the leaves:
in the early morning
mother earth is
cool,

the air
is like a river
that shakes
the silence,
it smells of rosemary,
of space
and roots.

Above,
a wild song,
a waterfall,
it's a bird.

How
from a throat
smaller than a finger
can the waters
of this song fall?

Luminous grace!
Invisible
power,
torrent
of music
in the leaves,
sacred conversation!

Clean, washed, cool
is this day,
resonant
like a green zither,

I bury
my shoes
in the mud,

I leap over springs,
a thorn
nips me and a gust
of air like a crystal
wave
separates on my chest.

Where
are the birds?
Was that one, maybe,
that
whispering in the foliage
or that fugitive ball
of gray velvet
or that sudden shift
of perfume?

That leaf
which the cinnamon tree let go,
was it a bird? That dust
from the irritated magnolia
or that fruit
which fell resounding,
was that a flight?

O invisible little cretins,
fiendish birds,
go
to hell
with your twittering,
with your useless feathers!

I just wanted
to stroke them,
to see them glisten,
I don't want
to see their lightning embalmed
in a showcase,

I wanted to see them alive,
I want to touch their gloves
of genuine leather,
which they never forget in the branches,
and to talk with them
on my shoulders
even if they leave me like certain statues
undeservedly whitened.

Impossible.
They can't be touched,
they can be heard
like a heavenly
whisper or movement,
they talk
precisely,
repeat
their observation,

brag
about whatever they're doing,
comment
on whatever exists,
master
certain sciences
like hydrology
and know for certain
where all the grains
are being harvested.

Well then,
invisible
birds
of the forest, of the woods,
of the pure bower,
birds of the acacia
and of the oak,
crazy, amorous,
astonishing birds,
conceited
soloists,
migratory musicians,

one last
word
before
I go back
with wet shoes, thorns
and dry leaves
to my home:

vagabonds,
I love you
free,
far from the shotgun and the cage,
fugitive
corollas,
this is the way
I love you,
ungraspable,
united and sonorous
society of the heights,
liberated
leaves,
champions
of the air,
petals
of smoke,
free,
cheerful

flyers and singers,
aerial, terrestrial,
sailors of the wind,
happy
builders
of the softest nests,
unceasing
messengers of pollen,
matchmakers
of the flower, uncles
of the seed,

I love you,
ingrates:
I'm going home,
happy to have lived with you
a moment
in the rain.

Ode to Birdwatching
Pablo Neruda

Bird by Bird
We have come to know the earth
at the New River Birding and Nature Festival

Beth from My Life With Birds

Nina from Nature Remains

Jane from Jalynn's Window on Nature

Barb from My Bird Tales

Kathie from Sycamore Canyon

Lynne from Hasty Brook

Laura from Somewhere in NJ

Bill from Bill of the Birds

Kathi from Katdoc's World

Mary from Mary's View

Jane from Wrenaissance Reflections

Kathy from Life, Birding Photos and Everything

Susan from Susan Gets Native

not pictured:

Kathleen from A Glorious Life

Julie Zickefoose

Jeff Gordon

Jim McCormac

What we discovered at New River, Bird by Bird:

(Remember to embiggen the photos)

pictured top to bottom: Ovenbird; New River Gorge; Wake Robin Trillium; Red Eft; Fiddlehead Fern; Black and White Warbler; West Virginia Woodlands; Spring Blooms; Pitcher Plant; Pitcher Plant; Millipede, Lichen, Water Glider Shadows; Pipevine Swallowtails and Nessus Sphinx Moth; New River; Cascade of White Violets; Red Eft; Marsh Marigold; Black-Capped Chickadee; New River Gorge Bridge; and the 2009 New River Nature Bloggers.