Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Brighton comes to live with us!

Harris's Hawk

All the neighborhood birds were making a racket this morning when I left for work. When I looked to see why, I found this bird on an old TV antenna next door. It was quite entertaining to watch the rest of the birds watch the hawk. When it flew over to a nearby tree, it looked like a small bomb blew out all the sparrows and doves that had been hiding there.

Huntington Gutenberg

There be whales here!

The back of a Blue off Newport Beach.

AZ-260 near the Mogollon Rim

This was taken from the top of the Rim, looking west toward Payson.

Stellar's Jay

Woods Canyon Lake, AZ. Beautiful place and a beautiful, if noisy, bird...

Ash-Throated Flycatcher and Gambel's Quail

The feast of saguaro fruit has brought all sorts of birds to the table.

Wickenburg's Old Town

The boardwalk is concrete these days and the dirt road is blacktop now, but the flavor is still there...

Gila Hanging from the feeder

I've been trying to get this picture for a very long time and it finally worked out. I shot this through our front window because I can't get the bird to hang around (pun intended) if I try to get outside and take it. The bird also flips (pun intended) and gets on the perch and then drinks sideways from a hole around the rim from where it is, so these upsidedown ones are hard to catch.

I'm pretty happy with this in case you can't tell... :D

US-93 over the Black Canyon

This was taken from the top of Hoover Dam looking west. As I understand it, there will be a walkway out to the middle of the bridge, which will be about a thousand feet above the river and offer a spectacular view of the dam.

Saguaro and Flicker

I think this is a Gilded Flicker...

Boojum sunset

This was at the Desert Botanical Garden.

Boojum, cactus and glass

Desert Botanical Garden, Dale Chihuly exhibition...

Butterfly and goldfish

The fish kept trying to get to the butterfly, which appeared not to notice at all.

A sky full of cranes

Near the Whitewater Draw Nature Preserve we saw this huge swirl of cranes overhead. It was just amazing.

Willcox Cranes

This is my first ever video post. The shot is of cranes taking off from the Willcox playa. I shot it with my Canon S5 camera, so it has some background sounds and I took some in-process snapshots. I left it as is so that the sound of the cranes is there...

Uof P stadium

Cardinals play here...

Oh, Say's, can you see?

I think this is a Say's Phoebe. If it's not, then the title doesn't work so well...

Anna's in Flight

This was a long zoom and cropped, so it's fairly pixelated, but still kind of a fun picture.

Burrowing Owl

This wee beastie was just taking a little sun this morning.

Highway art

The freeways around the Phoenix area are decorated with all sorts of patterns and designs. Each highway has sections that are somewhat themed. Both the slopes and the concrete structures are treated, as you can see here. The slopes are covered with gravel of different textures and colors. This particular shot is at the Loop 101 (AKA the Pima Freeway) and Chapparal.

Water Ranch, New Years Day

Green Heron



Orange-crowned Warbler



Peach-faced Lovebird

33 species that I counted today, but probably twice that many that I missed, given my neophyte status...