Welcome
I am an avid birder and amateur photographer living in the Sonoran desert of Southwestern United States.
This site was created (after much prodding) to share with my family and friends my favorite photos and the places I have recently been birding, The photos are not always artistically great, but they are the ones that I like and are meaningful to me. I consider myself foremost a birder who takes pictures of the birds I see while out birding, not a nature photographer who plans and goes out to get "the shot" of a bird. I hope you enjoy my photos.
Stop back often. I update the site with my latest outings weekly.
Birding Journey
Most birders seem to have "the bird" that got them interested in the hobby. For me it was a Cooper's Hawk. I was sitting on our patio minding my own business, when a Cooper's Hawk chased a Mourning Dove into our patio door. The dove was out for the count and the hawk calmly sat on our fence rail waiting for a chance to claim his dinner.
I ran into the house to get my camera and was able to get bunch of great photos of the hawk.
I was hooked!
I started paying attention to the birds coming to our fountain. Put up feeders. Bought better binoculars. Upgraded my camera and lenses. Created a library of bird books and guides. Started attending bird festivals and scheduling time during every trip we take for birding.
I even get my S.O.B. (spouse of birder) to come along occasionally.
Photography Journey
I purchased my first serious camera when I was in high school - a Canon EF with a 50mm lens. The EF was a pretty advanced 35 mm SLR for the time. I can't remember what made me do it, but it was probably to impress a girl. OK, it was absolutely to impress a girl. Her father recommended the EF and said the place to get it was the recently opened B&H Photo in New York. I took 'a lot' of pictures with that camera 24 or 36 shots ay a time over a few weeks, then I'd send the film to Kodak for processing (another week) before finally seeing how the pictures turned out. A far cry from today. The camera is now long gone, but the girl is still around; we've been married 45 years.
After about 20 years of declining use, and many point and shoot film and digital cameras, I decided I needed to replace the old EF with a new camera for a trip to Europe. So I moved up to a Canon 20D with EF28-70mm and EF100-300 zoom lenses. The 20D was digital SLR! No more film and it produced an impressive 8.2 megapixel digital image you could view immediately - quite an improvement. I was still using that camera when I started birding and took many good pictures with it. But as I got more serious about birding it wasn't enough.
I'm now using a Canon R5 mk II camera with a RS100-500 zoom lens for birding.
Resources
I purchased my first serious camera when I was in high school - a Canon EF with a 50mm lens. The EF was a pretty advanced 35 mm SLR for the time. I can't remember what made me do it, but it was probably to impress a girl. OK, it was absolutely to impress a girl. Her father recommended the EF and said the place to get it was the recently opened B&H Photo in New York. I took 'a lot' of pictures with that camera 24 or 36 shots ay a time over a few weeks, then I'd send the film to Kodak for processing (another week) before finally seeing how the pictures turned out. A far cry from today. The camera is now long gone, but the girl is still around; we've been married 45 years.
After about 20 years of declining use, and many point and shoot film and digital cameras, I decided I needed to replace the old EF with a new camera for a trip to Europe. So I moved up to a Canon 20D with EF28-70mm and EF100-300 zoom lenses. The 20D was digital SLR! No more film and it produced an impressive 8.2 megapixel digital image you could view immediately - quite an improvement. I was still using that camera when I started birding and took many good pictures with it. But as I got more serious about birding it wasn't enough.
I'm now using a Canon R5 mk II camera with a RS100-500 zoom lens for birding.