outdoor photography

You Tube Slide Show of My Favorite Bird Photos from 2014 (a work in progress) It's been a pretty great year for birding for me.  I'm especially happy with my results for Seminole County (details for this will be in a future post), but I had my best birding year yet.  And I also had a few trips up north (Boston, Philly), one to California, and one to Mexico. These were not birding trips, but they still allowed me to get several more lifers than I would have had otherwise. Glaucous Guill Lifers are harder to come by now that I have well over 300 species in the state of Florida, but that's okay, I'm not complaining.  It makes the challenge all the more fun.  Here's my list of lifers from 2014: Western Tanager:    Lake Apopka North Shore Restoration Area, FL (01 Jan 2014)   Common Eider: Jetty Park, FL (04 Jan 2014) Western Gull: San Diego, CA (17 Mar 2014) California Towhee: San Diego, CA (17 Mar 2014) Lesser Goldfinch: San Diego, CA (...

Nuttall's Woodpecker When we were in L.A. last week, we took a little time to visit Huntington Central Park.  I'd checked eBird and found that over 300 species have been recorded in this one little park. That's simply amazing to me!  The park reminded me of Central Winds, which is one of my favorite birding spots in my home county, though only 162 species have been recorded there. In fact, fewer than 270 species have been recorded in my whole county.  However, this park is near the beach, and it's in Southern California.  I had a wonderful time, and if I lived nearby, I suspect I'd need to be there at least once per week. The Nuttall's Woodpeckers I saw making more Nuttall's Woodpeckers were lifers for me. Western Bluebird Western Bluebird There were a few Western Bluebirds here too--I haven't seen these since I was a kid living in Concord, CA. I was pretty struck again by how beautiful these birds are, especially the males.  Our eastern va...