Time Out!

No blogging for a couple weeks. Zac and I are headed to Trinidad and Tobago until mid January. Niiiice! We're finally taking our honeymoon. Can't wait! Hope to have heaps of photos upon returning. Thanks for keeping up with my blog and Happy 2010!

The Funk and The Duke

I haven't posted any photos of the infamous Garfunkel (aka Funky G, G-Funk, Funky Nugget) and Hayduke (aka HiDuke, Hey Duke) lately. And that's just ridiculous, because I love these little feline fellows so much. This'll probably be my last entry for the year and I thought they should grace 'the cover.'

They are both strays. I've had Garf since 2001 when I rescued him from the pound in Flagstaff, AZ. I volunteered there and fell in love with Garfunkel, who tried to attack everyone but me. I had to get him out of there! He lived illegally in the dorm with me until I could go home months later with him. He's about 12ish now and painfully sweet and huge on eye contact. I love the little (actually, he's pretty big!) guy. He lives in Tennessee with my parents because he and Hayduke would eat each other. That sucks and I wish they would get along, but that's just not happening. He's extremely happy in TN though and I chat with him on the phone sometimes, it's true. I'm going to visit him in February :)

Hayduke found me in late 2007 when I was doing field work in the hellish place called Corpus Christi, Texas and Padre Island National Seashore (no offense anyone!). I would have been 100 percent miserable there if it weren't for Hayduke. He came meowing at my trailer (that's right, we got luxurious housing!) door the second day I was there. He sat on my lap and watched Neverending Story and ate vegan mac and cheeze with me that night, while purring the entire time. Pretty sweet little guy. When I was done with the gig there, I moved to Hill Country and couldn't just leave him in Corpus, so he came along of course. And if you were wondering, indeed yes, he is named after the Ed Abbey character, Hayduke. Why? because he would disappear those first few weeks for a day or so and I figured he was out pouring sand in gas tanks and destroying billboards. Heh heh.

Both of them are excellent travelers, both have been on cross country plane rides and cross country road trips numerous times. So now you know about The Funk and The Duke. They're pretty awesome.

Burrowing Owl - Finally!

Ah, finally! A Burrowing Owl! They melt me with their cute factor. This one was hanging out at the South Spit. The sun has just called it quits for the day, and I had the ISO at 500 and 640 so again, not super duper quality, but I'm happy I actually got a picture, oh yeah!

Leafcutter Ants in Action

A couple photos of leaf cutter ants in Uvita, Costa Rica. These guys are pretty snazzy with their leaf chopping abilities and their ant trail interstates. We were pretty impressed with them and enjoyed watching their shenanigans whenever we came across a colony, which was fairly often. They can carry 30 times their weight. As much as we saw them, I didn't really get many photos of them. One day I'll master taking the 500 mm lens off and quickly putting the macro and scorpion flash on in quicker time. Untill then... Macro Monday and Macro Lovers

Machete Flower and Emerald Toucanet

This and another Emerald Toucanet were having a hearty feast of these machete flowers. They were so intent on their lunch that I was able to get within ten feet of them. I was pleased with that. I love the color of these birds, so freaking vibrant! Taken in Costa Rica earlier this year. Bird Photography Weekly and Today's Flower

Savannah Shadow

Bird shadows (this is a Savannah Sparrow) always make me smile for some reason. I guess it's not too often you see little shadows from them, so I'm happy when it happens because well, it's just a cute itty bitty shadow, you know? Shadow Shot Sunday

Jumping Elk? No. Elk. Jumping.

Elk, but no jumping elk. But Zac and I did spend a significant portion of Christmas day jumping and running around like hyperactive children. That's right. We had ideal weather: 55 and sunny! for the day so we drove up to Dry Lagoon and jumped and wandered the beach. Yeah, basically we just jumped. There wasn't much to take photos of and there were too many people on the trail..don't blame 'em since it was so nice out. Crowded trails make me want to cry and scream, so we decided jumping was the next best thing. And taking photos of said jumping. So, well, there you have it.

The Roosevelt Elk were around and I snagged some pictures of them. I had the ISO pretty high since it was getting dark by the time we left, so they aren't spectacular. Alas, now it is time for spiced wine and veggie soup and gingerbread. Yeehaw. Happy Christmas!

My World Tuesday

One Sailboat

This was taken at the North Spit here in Humboldt. It was a gross day and this was later in the afternoon. All the sudden the sun broke through the clouds and let out some pretty sweet sunbeams. There was only one boat out there, this sailboat, and it happened to be in the perfect place. Skywatch Friday , Scenic Sunday , Monochrome Weekend and Happy Holidays :)

Costa Rica Birds 2009

All right, time for the Costa Rica favorites now. This'll sum up my 2009 favorite birds posts. The others: California Birds and Texas Birds are here. There's a couple handfuls from Costa Rica since we saw 204 species while we were there earlier this year. I've posted most of these in my Costa Rica journal entries but hey, here they are again! The first guy is an Emerald Toucanet which I was ridiculously thrilled about. I mean, look at him, he's really quite dashing.

This Bare-throated Tiger Heron above is an all time favorite photo. We had seen them earlier in the trip but this one is from the Corcovado backpacking. I basically crawled and scooted closer and closer to him on the rocks at low tide and got a full frame of his head. Gorgeous Birds. We saw 12 species of hummingbirds. Below is the Purple-throated Mountain Gem (what a fitting name!) and Violet Saberwing. Good stuff.

Scarlet Macaw in the wild...um, very cool! Those birds are SO loud...woke us up often while we were camping, but really, is there a better way to wake up? ...an adorable Bananaquit, a female Elegant Trogon, Mangrove Black-Hawk (who allowed us to get weirdly close, nice!).

Next round is the Western Slaty-Antshrike on takeoff, Streak-chested Antpita, Double-striped Thicknee (good find), and the Collared Redstart who was sooo crazy hyper, I'm surprised I got even one shot of him.

Wait, there's more! A Northern Pootoo who flew right above us on a night hike. This was shooting straight into the dark, straight above my head, which was actually kinda painful. But, somehow I got the bird in the frame. Then a Great-crested Flycatcher. I dunno...that genus is impossible to identify, but we're going with Great-crested. Another favorite photograph. After that is a Black-hooded Antshrike. I was a little annoyed that I didn't get his tail in the photo, but the rest is super sharp so there was some compromise. He got so close so quickly, I didn't have time to zoom out!

And last is the Streaked Flycatcher and the Golden-naped Woodpecker. That last one is not too high quality, but I was pretty excited about that bird also, so I thought I'd throw it on here.

Camera Critters Happy Holidays!

California Birds 2009

Next 'Best of Birds' set is from Northern California, all Humboldt County. We just moved back here in late August, and I've posted most of the good stuff pretty recently, so I don't want to repeat too many photos. But here's a couple of my favorite photos from the past few months. The Olympic Gull snarfing down the starfish; Love that I was able to get this shot. The Yellow-rumped Warbler is everywhere, but I quite like how he's checking me out in this photo below.

This Northern Pygmy Owl was awesome! He flew pretty close to us at eye level and caught a cricket. Unfortunately, the camera settings were off and the photos were not really sharp at all and it was too dark. But, he was still a highlight. My first pygmy owl. Below him is the badass Peregrine Falcon. Such an excellent bird. And then the Mountain Plover, which I realize I've posted a couple times recently, but I love the photo and that we actually go to see him! Last is the American Pipit. I just like that he stayed so still...they never do!

Texas Birds 2009

Since it's the end of the year, I thought it would be appropriate to do an entry (make that a few entries) on some of the more exciting birds from 2009. My year number is about 510 - this is thanks to Zac, who keeps track on Ebird. Some aren't the best pictures and some of the better pictures aren't necessarily exciting birds. The first set is from Texas (all over the state). From the top: Vermilion Flycatcher, Green Jay, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Painted Bunting, Golden-cheeked Warbler Fledgling, Spoonbills, Black-capped Vireo, Piping Plover, Blue-headed Vireo, Altimira Oriole, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Bronzed Cowbird, Golden-cheeked Warbler.

Nature Notes