Fairweather Zealot

On the first day of my 4-day ‘vacation’, I decided to take some time for myself and visit a favorite haunt, Palmyra Cove. I knew that most of the rest of the weekend would be taken up by work (both my real job and some side work I’m doing), so this might be my only chance to get out and enjoy myself. It turned out that it wasn’t particularly birdy, but there were TONS of butterflies and dragonflies around (although strangely, no damselflies). Continue reading

Day 2 started early as I met fellow Flickr birders Photo Patty and her husband Al for a day of birding in Monterey. I have to say right off that Patty wins the “Good Trooper” award for coming along two days after breaking her leg (she insisted).  I was excited to have some locals to show me hot spots, but I couldn’t have expected the pinpoint accuracy they would have with their predictions. Not only were they able to produce many new birds on my list, but they seemed to almost always do it at the first place they tried. Anyway, the trip to Monterey was nice as we caught up since their visit last July, talked about our trips to Arizona (man, I really want to go back), and they filled me in on the places we would be checking out. Continue reading

The end of May was a flurry of activity: lots of work, and then I was asked to fill in for a co-worker at the Mobile Health 2010 conference out in California. It meant missing out on my long- awaited Phils-Red Sox game but I was excited because I’ve been doing a lot of mobile stuff lately. Plus, since the tickets were for Saturday and the conference didn’t start until Sunday, I would have some time to explore the area (read, bird). Continue reading

Another year has passed and I get to look back at what I have done throughout the year. In this case, I get to see what I did and enjoyed when looking at birds (and butterflies & dragonflies). It was a slower year for me – I got out a lot less than I had in the past, and was able to enjoy many fewer walks and hikes to search out the peace I get when I’m birding. In the past, even going to nearby Palmyra Cove a dozen times a year and walking the familiar paths after work or on a Saturday morning was a joy – but one that seemed to escape me all too often this busy year. On the other hand, I had the amazing experience of birding in Arizona in April & May – something I would love to repeat someday soon. Continue reading

Our last day in the Cave Creek area we wanted to hit some of those places we had missed earlier and look for a couple of species that we really wanted to see: Juniper Titmice, Scaled and Montezuma Quail and Zone-tailed Hawks. We also wanted to make a trip up to the Chiricahua National Monument to see the amazing rock formations there. Continue reading

After our trip to Cape May, we decided to head to old standby Forsythe NWR in Brigantine to find some shorebirds. We had good success with the insects at Cape May, but not so much with the birds. So, we figured we could get all 3 at Forsythe although we would focus on the birds. Continue reading

Last year my wife and I spent a long weekend at Cape May to celebrate our 5th anniversary; this year, we couldn’t do awhile weekend but we wanted to continue the tradition. I wanted to get really early so that we could be there at sunrise; Shari wanted to get up just before sunrise and make it down there early-is in the morning. We compromised and did what she wanted. Continue reading

She’s got a great sense of humor. (even after the dog has been snacking).

After the extremely trying week I had last week (lots of hours, tons of different projects, lots of deliverables, grandfather back in the hospital, hang nail), I took Friday off to get a little bit of nature photography in before the pending heat wave (which has been ungodly, btw – near 100 degrees for 5 days). I went down to a small local pond where we can usually find quite a few cool bugs to photograph, taking my wife’s Nikon 105mm f/2.8 lens with me (God, I love that lens). After a rough start, suddenly, I was inundated with odonata everywhere. Continue reading

Well, it finally happened – I actually got paid for one of my photographs. Granted, it was a request for one of my bad pictures to show off an example of how to reduct noise, but it’s something, right? LOL

Seriously, here it is in Popular Photography magazine (scan courtesy of Mon@rch – thanks Tom!) in all of it’s grainy glory. You can see the original version in my own noiseware test from a couple of years ago. Now I’m just waiting for my issue of the magazine to get here so I can see it ‘live’.
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