First photos with Lumix FZ40

Taking advantage of today's bright sun, I was able to get out for about an hour to try for some photos with my new camera.  There were few birds around so I looked for photo ops where I could imagine a perched bird and that I thought would challenge the telephoto.

I was getting ready to leave when I checked once again the trees over the frozen pond.  Good thing I did.  This Peregrine had flown in and perched without my noticing.  

On the way out I flushed two American Tree Sparrows near the gate and was able to take several photos.

The sparrow above was posing and remained on this fence post long enough for me to shoot the 34 second video below.  Not ready to accept my Academy Award yet; this is the first time I've used the video recording on any camera ever and then figured out how to upload to You Tube.  Grateful for small things.

Slate on-line magazine article: The Birder

Birds and birding are showing up in popular culture ... again.  Nathan Heller writes an article for the on-line magazine Slate titled:  The Birder:  The ominous rise of amateur ornithology.

NY Times article: Birding in India

I've come to think that somebody on the New York Times staff is a birder.  India, Through a Birder's Eyes appeared in the 01-14-2011 paper.  The slide show alone says it all.

Red-winged Blackbirds fall from the sky

Dramatic news coverage has been on several internet, radio and television news sources.

NPR All Things Considered/Morning Edition, linked here, takes on the mystery of the death of thousands Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) over the town of Beebe, Arkansas on New Years Eve.

A week later, this piece about the incident appeared in the New York Times Week in Review section.

Last Christmas bird count for 2010 ...

... welcome 2011.  Detroit River CBC - the last for my 2010 CBC season and my first birding of 2011.  I found twenty-five species of our mostly ordinary winter birds.  It was rainy and warm ~ around 50 degrees F and, consequently, muddy.  All of our snow is gone.

American Robin was the bird of the day for me.  Here there were a dozen or so in a disturbed area near a golf course where trees still had berries.  With them were several White-throated Sparrows.

Later I came to the large lawn of a church property.  It was full of robins and puddles from melted snow and ice in which the bird above took a vigorous bath.  Some of the robins were singing.  I love our winter robins. 

Happy New Year!