Looks like a great week. It’s Albatrossity Monday and then we head to the Sinai Trail!
Albatrossity
This time of year, there are only a few kinds of birds to photograph here in Flyover Country, and sometimes minimal photons available to photograph them with. So I turn back to the archives to generate my On The Road posts, and dream of sunshine and travel and warmer weather.
Last Monday’s post, about a chase to see a bird that I did not find, seemed to resonate with folks, and it occurred to me that I have plenty of stories like that. So this is another one of those, but I’ll spoil the ending right away.
In the fall of 2019, I got in the car and headed to California to go on a pelagic bird-watching trip out of Monterey. My friend Debi Shearwater was retiring after many years of organizing and leading bird-watching excursions off the central California coast, and I wanted to go on a final voyage before she gave up that gig. If you ever saw the movie “The Big Year” (or read the book, perhaps), she was the basis for the character Annie Auklet (played by Anjelica Huston) in that film, and indeed, she is a character. Sadly, our trip was canceled by bad weather, so I will have no pelagic bird shots to share, but I did see many good birds and scenic places on the trip there and back.
My first stop on trips west from here is often the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado; the Monte Vista and Alamosa refuges there can be very birdy, and it is a convenient (albeit long) day’s drive from my home in Manhattan. One of the attractions there in the fall is the large number of Swainson’s Hawks (Buteo swainsoni), which are a common hawk of the western US. At that time of year, they are starting to flock up and head south to the pampas for the winter. This handsome adult light-morph bird was telling me all about her plans for the trip south. Click here for larger image.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Westward 2019Post + Comments (15)