Birdwatching

Sitting in a swing, watching the birds go by…

Gambels’ Quail family, so cute but they moved too fast to get a good shot.

I was fiddling with the settings on my new camera (which I can still barely use), when this cute couple showed up (below). I almost never see goldfinches and this would have been a good shot if I had been prepared.

Now they just look like they live on some small, freaky planet.

Watching the birds watching me…

(As in a recent post, these photos were taken at the beautiful Franciscan Renewal Center (The Casa) in Scottsdale, AZ, which I have photographed many times.)

Up From the Egg: Confessions of a Nuthatch Avoider by Ogden Nash

Bird watchers top my honors list.
I aimed to be one, but I missed.
Since I’m both myopic and astigmatic,
My aim turned out to be erratic,
And I, bespectacled and binocular,
Exposed myself to comment jocular.

We don’t need too much birdlore, do we,
To tell a flamingo from a towhee;
Yet I cannot, and never will,
Unless the silly birds stand still.
And there’s no enlightenment in a tour
Of ornithological literature.
Is yon strange creature a common chickadee,
Or a migrant alouette from Picardy?

You can rush to consult your Nature guide
And inspect the gallery inside,
But a bird in the open never looks
Like its picture in the birdie books-
Or if it once did, it has changed its plumage,
And plunges you back into ignorant gloomage.
That is why I sit here growing old by inches,
Watching a clock instead of finches,
But I sometimes visualize in my gin
The Audubon that I audubin.