I've done a few articles for online websites in the past, and was also Featured Photographer for Cornell's All About Birds in 2005. When I had my Panasonic FZ10 (and -20 and -30), I'd added a Red-Dot Sight to the flash hot shoe so I could track birds in flight. It was a popular idea at the time, as it gave digicams the ability to do "BIFs" without the heavy lifting of huge lens; ironic as I now have that huge lens, and do the heavy lifting. But it's oh so worth it in terms of picture quality. I pitched the idea of doing an online article to Cornell, and they put it on their website. Through contact with Sam Crowe, who at the time was editor of All About Birds, we developed a working relationship, so when he left Cornell and created the Birdzilla website, I went along with him and eventually attained status as one of his "Birding Adventurers", where I did articles on the different bird areas I visited while living on the road in Discovery. The webpage is here . I'd also stayed in touch with Matt Mendenhall, managing editor of BirdWatching magazine, and I proposed that I do some HotSpot stories for his magazine on some of my favorite bird spots, such as Palos Verdes' South Coast Botanic Garden, where I'd been a member for 10 years, and the Overton Wildlife Management Area. I knew these had not been featured HotSpots before, so Matt agreed, I wrote the articles, and the first one, on the botanic garden, just came out, both in the magazine (April issue) and their online website; the online version is here , and the Overton WMA one will be coming out later this year. There are other stories I might do for BirdWatching -- more of that as time goes on. Fun stuff!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... It still blows me away at how birds are all around me here in Portal and the Chiricahuas. Sure, there were Red-tails, Spotted Towhees and other "local" birds in the South Bay of Los Angeles where I'd lived, and I'd "discovered" some rarities such as Mississippi Kites in Los Angeles -- 2 at the botanic garden, no less -- but Portal, and the Chiricahuas, are considered to possibly be the best bird area in all of North America. I've already seen some Target Birds here -- Elegant Trogon, Montezuma's Quail, Hepatic Tanager, Mexican Chickadee and a few others -- and since the Chiricahuas are the northern section of a land bridge stretching into Mexico, with the Sierra Madre being the southern part, there's the possibility of seeing birds that aren't seen elsewhere in the US. And I could see some of those birds on my property here. But even the more "usual suspects" are thrilling to see, especially if they're, say, across the street from Faranuf, where I saw this Ms. Northern Harrier hunting in the field --
My backyard feeders have been invaded by about 40 Pine Siskins for the past 2 days. Previous to that, I didn't have one. So I've been refilling my feeders about 3 times daily as they've just been chowing down, and staying here pretty much all of the day. They begin by perching on the branches of the trees ringing Faranuf's back yard --
Then the invasion begins. They even squabble among themselves --
The Pyrrhuloxia are back after being gone all winter. And it's a Mr and Mrs, so there may be some nesting activity soon. Here's the missus --
And a Pine Siskin in relative tranquillity, compared to the fracas above --
And here's a bird seed tray; it's a tall one so as to keep the deer away from it (and it works). There's nothing particularly exciting yet except for the number of birds --
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