birdspot

One pupil dilated more than the other = cool.

This looks a little like how I feel after a weekend of birding the Salton Sea, CA, in 100ºF+ temps. (more…)

Traversing the country, drawing lines of a sort and making scrawls on a geography vast enough to spur both awe and despair, I have been keeping lists. This is a Big Year. It is not a year in which I am trying to break records for numbers of bird species seen, as that would be ridiculous. I have neither the funds nor the willingness to visit a place – as every place is a Place – merely to tick something from it, and then run to the next place, to tick something from that.

Sightings are sightings however, and records are useful. I like to make my records tangible, give my memories a form. I thought I would share some of my lists from my trip in a few posts this week. It isn’t physical here though, is it? Paper is a beautiful thing, in its physicality, for its tactile qualities. All the little scraps I have collected will likely long outlast me, even if they flutter off to sink into a landfill somewhere. This has become something different; everything has become something different this year.

Images, top to bottom (click for larger image):

Studies of Plain Chachalacas, digital sketch (drawn in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet)
List 01 (Summary): Digital image and ink on paper
List 02 (TX): Digital image and ink on paper (detail below)

I have traveled 5,537 miles in 60 days, birded 6 states, seen 289 trip species, gotten 8 lifers, and have met and seen an unquantifiable number of amazing people. Happy New Year!!!

A Yellow-throated Warbler in San Antonio, New Mexico.

There are lenticular clouds over the mountains outside my motel room as I write this. I am leaving the Rio Grande River again, this time after trailing alongside it as it winds South through New Mexico, and after pausing along my drive yesterday to check out various spots at its banks and (artificially) dammed lakes. At the top end of Elephant Butte Lake, which I arrived at after taking back roads that were duly described as “irregularly maintained” in the excellent “New Mexico Bird Finding Guide”, I stopped at Monticello Point and had a great time scoping numerous grebes, waterfowl, and a smattering of (not as exciting as hoped for) gulls. Continuing Southward, I added more waterfowl, land birds, and finally, at dusk, the best looks at a Prairie Falcon I have ever had.

I thought I would write out my list for New Mexico, so if you are interested: (more…)