Brief Update...

(Northern Shrike photographed in 2005)

Yesterday Jesse Peterson, Ben Lizdas and I birded Badfish Wildlife Area and were treated to a Northern Shrike. Other birds included Great Blue Heron, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, American Tree Sparrow, Mourning Dove, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Dark-eyed Junco, Blue Jay and a Great Horned Owl. Being outside and taking in nature was exactly what I needed, and I didn't bother to carry my digiscoping gear along. Sometimes it's just nice to look and listen...snowflakes hitting the dead grass sounded like sizzling. The birds were pretty quiet - tree sparrows offered a sweet call note or two, and the owl hooted a short series.

Yes! It actually snowed yesterday, and a lot more is reportedly on the way. Fresh snow typically brings an increase of birds to our feeders and today was no exception. It was, like, "woodpecker central" around our maple tree. At one point, I had three Downy Woodpeckers, a Hairy Woodpecker and Red-bellied Woodpecker coming in for suet. A Red-breasted Nuthatch took a few nibbles as well.

This weekend I retired the Pentium II system I built back in 1998. After reading a few reviews, I decided to go with a Dell XPS 410. Becky loves it because now she can load songs on the iPod I got her for Christmas (the old system only supported USB 1.0). I also decided to upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS2, which should be arriving soon. I spent most of my free time this weekend transferring files and programs from the old system to the new one, including five years of digiscoped images.


(click on image for larger version)

While sifting through images, I came across this contact sheet image showing one of the luckiest digiscoping days I've ever had – a Sedge Wren, preening in images 3030 through 3037. The exposures with red dots were my "picks" for publishing in my web gallery. You can view them here, here, here and here.

All images © 2007 Mike McDowell