The big heron-like critter at the bottom of the frame is a Great Egret, Ardea alba. What appears to be an arrow pointing at it, is in fact a very P.O.'d male Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Tyrannus forficatus, chasing the egret out of its territory. This particular flycatcher was part of North Carolina's first documented nesting pair, which raised three fledglings on the ranch of Blayne and Anne Olsen near Monroe, NC in the summer of 2000. This species normally doesn't nest east of the Mississippi River, but there were nesting pairs in Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland the same summer! The NC pair just finished nesting at the same spot for the third consecutive summer.
Photos below marked with an N(for "new") are the most recently added ones.
Mystery Bird photographed at the suet feeder at my parents' house in Wenham, MA. I forget the exact year, but roughly 1986? The two leading theories are (1) a bizarrely leucistic Black-capped Chickadee, or (2) a Snow Bunting that for some reason developed a taste for suet and wooded habitat.
Blue-fronted Booby . Yes, THAT Blue-fronted Booby, the one that showed up in a nice woman's lakefront backyard in Granite Shoals, Texas and stayed for months, mostly perching on the diving board. It was seen by nearly six thousand birders from 19 states. We know this because the homeowners kept a log and asked birders to sign in.
American Bittern, being uncharacteristically visible. They're usually hard to see. Another one in North Carolina posed right by a marsh observation platform, thinking it was well camoflaged enough to stretch its wings.
Merritt Island NWR near Titusville, FL is a great place to see wading birds. For example, Roseate Spoonbill, or Reddish Egret, both photographed in January 1998 (on my way home from seeing my and Florida's first Northern Lapwing, below).
Greater Flamingo at "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge (another great wader- watching spot) on Sanibel, FL, summer 1999. I don't think the state committee deemed this one "countable", but I got much closer to it than I did to the wintering flock at Snake Bight...
Purple Gallinule chicks at Wakodahatchee Wetlands, southern Palm Beach County, Florida. Note the big feet!
This Sora swam across a pool just in front of a Tropical Kingbird (below).
Ross' Geese at South Pond of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. This pair appeared in the midst of a large flock of Snow Geese in fall of 2000. They were considerate enough to hang around through the "Wings Over Water" festival, when I took this photo just before co-leading a South Pond field trip with John Wright.
While I was in Florida collecting dragonflies in June 2001, I took a detour to see the Masked Duck that had been found nearby. It was next to a library in an artificial wetland created from recycled wastewater and planted with native south Florida plants, in an area surrounded by rampant overdevelopment and habitat destruction.
American Swallow-tailed Kite, photographed over Fakahatchee Strand in the southwestern Everglades. A bird I never get tired of watching, even though (or maybe because) my Ph.D. study organisms are a staple of their diet.
On Memorial Day weekend 2001, while I was waiting for my friend Brian Donlon's wedding to start, this Northern Harrier kept me company.
Crested Caracara overlooking the little brackish pond near the west end of the La Sal del Rey tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. I was officially there studying dragonflies, but saw birds too...
Red-shouldered Hawk. My father actually took this photo, and about a dozen others like it; he and my nephew had taken the camera and hiked up ahead of us on the boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp, near Naples, Florida. The bird was gone by the time my mother and I caught up, but I got to keep the pictures...
Gray Hawk, a recent fledgling of the pair that nested in Anzalduas County Park in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the summer of 2000. I had previously seen an adult Gray Hawk outside of Sycamore Canyon, AZ in May 1997.
This Golden Eagle was soaring over the road just outside Petroglyphs National Mounument near Alamogordo, NM. When I first spotted it, it was being attacked by a Common Raven.
My herper friend Ron Gutberlet and I trekked down from Falcon Dam to the traditional spot to see Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, but couldn't find it for the first couple of hours. In desperation, as we had to leave soon or risk being locked in for the night, we tried a tape, but Ron's tape player could't muster enough volume. Finally, I tried whistling an imitation of what I heard on the tape; sure enough, we heard a quiet answer, and within minutes the little bugger winged in and caught and ate a praying mantis while we watched.
This Boreal Owl was sleeping off its hangover after being banded the previous night by staff of the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory near Paradise, Michigan. A Northern Hawk-Owl, my favorite North American bird, turned up at WPBO a few days earlier.
Great Horned Owls in the eastern US seem to pick pretty well-hidden nest sites. The same species also nests in the southwest, but has to settle for more obvious homes.
In Florida, Burrowing Owls are pretty imperturbable. This one's home was in the traffic circle/bus stop in front of an elementary school in Palm Beach County! In New Mexico, the same species wouldn't let us get within 25 meters without either flushing or hiding.
The Limpkin is usually a shy bird, but this one was strolling around on an open lawn and let me approach pretty close. The rest of my bird photos were taken with a 500-mm telephoto, but for this one I used my 100-mm macro-lens! Their diet is overwhelmingly Florida Apple Snails (Pomacea paludosa), so they are very rare outside of Florida.
I saw my lifer South Polar Skua from a Brian Patteson pelagic birding trip on the Miss Hatteras, out of Hatteras, North Carolina, on August 8 1999. I didn't get this picture then, though. I had left Durham at midnight on Friday to make the boat, which left Saturday morning at 6 AM. On my way home, I passed through Manteo, NC, barely keeping myself awake, when I spotted a license plate that read "SAW WHET". This, of course, belongs to Paul Guris, who often leads pelagic trips out of Manteo on the Country Girl for Focus On Nature Tours . I chased him into a Food Lion parking lot and found out that they had room for another birder on their Sunday trip, so I checked into a motel, got some sleep, and joined them. I took this picture on Sunday from the Country Girl.
Kelp Gull. Yes, THAT Kelp Gull, Shrimpy, who at last check was still hanging around behind the Sea Breeze restaurant in Sandgates, Maryland, having probably dethroned the Blue-footed Booby above as the most-seen single bird in the history of American birding. If only someone had been counting...
This Ring-billed Gull (with Laughing Gulls in the background) is taking a cracker from the hand of my then two-year-old nephew, Ian Gowing (who's 14 now). Taken on the beach at Matheson Hammock County Park, Coral Gables, FL.
Black Noddy, with a conveniently placed Brown Noddy for comparison. I lucked into this pair on May 14, 1999 on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, FL. The Black is distinguished mainly by the sharply contrasting white cap; compare to the Brown's cap, which fades gradually into the darker back.
Black Skimmer showing how it got its name. Taken near Rockport, Texas in April 1994 (I think).
This Black-necked Stilt was defending its chick from the Ford Explorer that I was driving at the time. Taken on the Black Point Wildlife Drive of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Titusville, FL.
This Northern Lapwing was not only my first, but Florida's as well, in the winter of 1998-99. Unfortunately, pea-soup fog made photography difficult while it was on the ground, and it flew around (when I took this photo) and then away just as the fog lifted.
Snowy Plover along a drying muddy creek that fed into the big salt lake at La Sal del Rey, LRGV NWR, TX.
My friends and I missed the White Wagtail at Huntington Beach State Park in April 1998. This Wilson's Plover seemed to be laughing at us...
I see Purple Sandpipers virtually every winter at Fort Clinch State Park, one of my favorite stopping points on the drive south to Miami Beach to visit my grandmother for the holidays.
Spruce Grouse are difficult to find in most places, but this male made it easy and displayed right by the roadside in the Trout Lake area of northeastern Michigan. This female, on the other hand, was lurking in the underbrush with her mate on Mount Jefferson in New Hampshire; I might have missed them, but two non-birding hikers asked me what those birds in the bushes were!
Gambel's Quail usually keeps a low profile, but this one ascended some bushes to call in Bosque del Apache NWR, NM.
Paraque from Santa Ana NWR in the LRGV. Not sure if it is incubating eggs, or just sleeping.
N When my friend Bill Haley and I flushed a Lesser Nighthawk at La Sal del Rey, we answered that question; it was incubating its nest, containing one egg and one newly hatched chick!
Rufous Hummingbird was the most unusual species ever to visit my backyard on Hillgrand Drive in Durham, NC. It was first spotted on January 24 2001 by my botanist housemate Norm Douglas, and kept showing up through mid-April!
Buff-bellied Hummingbird in Corpus Christi, Texas in the yard of (I think) Joel Simon. I narrowly missed the Green Violet-ear that was visiting the same yard in May 2000, but this critter made a nice consolation prize.
I saw my first Broad-billed Hummingbird on the Keewanau Peninsula in Michigan, believe it or not. This one was in a much more normal location for the species, the Patons' feeders in Patagonia, Arizona. A Violet-crowned Hummingbird visited the same day.
This Green-breasted Mango was the first (and so far only) US record outside of Texas. It turned up in Lori Turner's yard in Concord, North Carolina, just before Thanksgiving 2000.
Bad light, good bird: this White-crowned Pigeon was roosting in Mahogany Hammock in the Everglades one winter afternoon.
Elegant Trogon is common enough in Southeastern Arizona but tought to get a good, clear look at. This one was in Madera Canyon, a little ways uphill from the cabins.
I originally wanted to do research on Greater Roadrunners at UT-Arlington, but I wound up studying giant waterbugs instead. I'm kind of glad; see my other photos to see what they look like. But I still have a soft spot in my heart for these critters.
This Cuban Pewee appeared on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas on May 13, 1998, shortly before Andreas Kristensen and I arrived. My report was actually not accepted by the Records Committee of the Florida Ornithological Society, but the Tortugas ornithologists (Sonny Bass, I think, and the late great Bill Robertson) got video of the same bird and recorded its call, which supposedly was diagnostic... anyone know what happened to their record?
The 2001 Wings Over Water festival was full of excitement. This Tropical Kingbird was identified on the first day of the festival (after being reported as a Western Kingbird a few days earlier). A Sprague's Pipit found the preceding week stuck around through the festival weekend, and on the final day (after I left, of course) a Fork-tailed Flycatcher capped things off!
I got to have my fun later, though. The Alligator River NWR CBC debuted in 2001, and I volunteered. A week or so earlier someone had reported a very unseasonable Great Crested Flycatcher there. I discovered what was probably the same bird, actually an Ash-throated Flycatcher. I took a few more photos just in case the the bird disappeared, but fortunately it stuck around for weeks and many birders got good looks at it.
Dusky-capped Flycatcher from Sycamore Canyon, AZ, May 1997.
The Florida Scrub-Jay was recently declared a separate species from its western cousins. Among other things, after they fledge the young birds help their parents raise other young for a few years. This doesn't happen in the western species.
Green Jay, photographed the same day and in the same park as the immature Gray Hawk above.
Corvids are among the smartest of all birds, so it's not surprising that this Black-Billed Magpie knew where the wildlife observation area was...
Cactus Wren is another tough species to scare off. This one was nesting in a cholla in the parking lot of a little cafe at the north end of Alamogordo, New Mexico.
I saw several Cape May Warblers, including this one, the first time I participated in the fall North American Migration Count. I was in Chatham County, NC, at Ebenezer State Recreation Area.
Hermit Warbler migrating through Madera Canyon, AZ in May 1997.
Bananaquit from Guadeloupe in the French Lesser Antilles. I took this picture in an open-air bakery. This flock of birds, which as nectarivores have a natural sweet tooth, would raid the pastries; so the proprietors of the bakery set out dishes of brown sugar, both diverting the birds from the salable food and giving the customers an on-table show!
Hepatic Tanager is not one of the brighter tanagers, but is one of the rarer ones in the US. This one was in Sycamore Canyon, AZ in May 1997.
Some exotic species cause a lot of damage, but the Spot-breasted Oriole hasn't been a problem since arriving in Florida.
Western Meadowlark singing a song, in the Sacramento NWR in California.
I spotted this Vesper Sparrow perched on a roadside wire during Bill Hilton 's York/Rock Hill CBC in December 2000. The photo of it perched, and those of it feeding and drinking, didn't show the species' diagnostic field marks as well as the one photo I took of it in flight.
A bunch of Lincoln's Sparrows were foraging in the shallow parts of the creek in Sycamore Canyon on my visit there. Not sure for what; seems like wierd habitat for a sparrow...
This Albino White-throated Sparrow was photographed near a feeder in Hillsborough, NC by Olesia Kennedy in November 2001.
I had a close-up view of this Red Crossbill and the rest of its flock feeding at the Salisbury State Reservation one Thanksgiving. The light was bad on virtually all of my photos, but this one shows the bill nicely. The Massachusetts RBA reported White-wings in the same area, but I never saw them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
