Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Bird Watching in Tucson


One morning before class, a bunch of us went for a walk around Kate's neighbourhood to do a little bird watching. Tucson is somewhat of a mecca for birdwatchers, as it is situated on the north-south migratory path between Canada and Mexico.

Two of the students in our group, Allison and Karen, are avid bird watchers and they were very helpful in identifying a number of different specimens. Allison actually writes about her bird-watching adventures on her blog, which you may enjoy: http://threestarowl.com/journal. I found her entry regarding a Cooper's hawk sighting on November 22nd to be especially interesting, since we'd seen one in a tree near Kate's house one morning but I wasn't able to get a very good look at it and as you can see from my photo, you can only tell there's a hawk in the shot if you take my word for it!

By the way, Allison is a very talented clay artist and Kate's home is filled with many of her pieces, most of which I neglected to photograph. I particularly liked this mug, and the detail on the bottom of it.

But I digress. Back to the birds. The only one of which I was actually able to get a clear photo was this Curve-billed Thrasher with his distinctive yellow eye.



As you can see, I've included a couple of photos of the group looking at birds, with and without binoculars. I especially like the lighting in this last photo, the way the sun is glowing in a cone shape over their heads.





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