May: Dauphin Island Adventure

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In May, I spent a few days on Dauphin Island–always a good time! But that trip I had a cold that wouldn’t quit, so one afternoon, instead of walking beaches and bird sanctuaries and neighborhoods as usual, I went to the marina and got on a “Lighthouse, Shrimping, Dolphin” boat tour. Turns out the dolphins were all vacationing in the Bahamas and the sea was too rough to go out to the lighthouse. Nevertheless…. it happened that the smallish group on the boat included a family of seven: mom, dad, a babe in arms, and four kids ranging in age…

January: Birds & Beaches

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It’s really late to be starting my #YearInReview series, but I’m going with “better late than never”! Winter is birding season and January 2025 I participated in the Lake Claiborne (State Park) Christmas Bird Count for the first time. Claiborne is in the northwest corner of the state, so two birding and butterfly counting friends and I met at a nearby hotel the night before so we could begin counting early the designated day. I’m sorry to say, I did not save documentation of the count totals to my computer, but I do recall that the three of us identified…

#AdventWord #Mother

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We were traveling by pontoon boat down the Sierpe River that flows through the largest mangrove swamp of the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica into the Pacific Ocean. Me, several other photographers and our boat captain and a guide were all scanning the shoreline for birds, crocodiles, iguanas, snakes, monkeys–you name it. The Osa Peninsula is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. I’m not sure who first spied the baby Green Heron (Butorides virescens), still covered with down, struggling among the mangrove and ficus roots along the bank. But no sooner had the shout gone up and…

#AdventWord #Truly

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Today I stood in the exact same spot I stood in seven years ago to make this photo of a White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis). And today, like then, I was standing in that spot as a participant in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. That December day in 2018, we counted birds from dawn to dark and saw probably a dozen white-throated sparrows, plus several individual birds of several other species of sparrow. Today we counted birds from dawn to dark, covered the same ground, and did not see a single sparrow! Do I need to repeat that? Today my…

#AdventWord #Brood

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It was a hot summer day. I had been butterfly counting for hours and was dripping sweat and running low on water. Time to head for air conditioning. Then I walked up on this little brood, secure in their well-reinforced basket hanging from a branch of a small tree swaying gently in the breeze. Stop. Ponder the wonder of it all.