Six hopeful and one pessimistic birder made another attempt to see the Le Conte’s Sparrow at Dyess AFB Saturday morning. I’m admitting that I was the pessimistic one. After all, I had made numerous trips to the site, each time coming up with nothing. OK, maybe we’ll see the bird but it won’t cooperate for […]

We don’t think of winter as being particularly colorful. Everything’s mostly shades of brown or gray, drab colors to match our cloudy sunless days. But I was just processing several photos of winter bird species and had to share the beautiful colors of our Big Country birds with you. From the orange in American Kestrel… […]

These attractive ducks seemed impervious to our record low of 16 the other morning. John took some excellent photos as you’re about to see while I tried to bury myself in his borrowed thermal blanket. But then the ducks took to the air and I stopped hibernating long enough to capture their flight across the […]

While birding Fort Griffin State Park with Heidi (awesome birder, transplanted Houstonian, she too has been stuck in mud), we came upon a small puddle of water where the local residents were taking public bathes. But these residents bathe with their finest attire, and one unusually good lookin’ “Winter Texan” (well he came to Texas […]

While John and I were hunkered down in a very wet, cold ditch at Dyess AFB last Monday morning (January 29th to be exact) waiting for a little stealthy Le Conte’s Sparrow to put in an appearance so its Paparazzi could immortalize it, we noticed hardly anything was stirring or flying about. With ice in […]

What’s been flying around this week? Birds that like it wet, birds that love mud, and birds that are different. I’m continually amazed at the diversity in our avian world. For each habitat in our world, wet-dry, mountain-valley, desert-forest, lake-sea or swamp-grassland there are beautiful little (or big) feathered creatures that hop, flutter, creep, swim […]

Winter finally settled over the Big Country in mid-January. Below freezing temperatures, sleet, snow, and continually cloudy dreary days have kept me inside preoccupied with other projects. But I can only go so long without birds in my life. The first above-freezing day I grabbed the binoculars, a friend, and headed out for the day. […]

Well, my feeble excuses are: I’ve been busy! Don’t give me the eye; I know everyone else has been busy, too. Holidays are fun, I thoroughly enjoyed them, but now… …it’s time to get back to work… …looking at the task from every angle… … and now I’m poised to bring you more information, more […]