What a way to start and finish!!!

 

What a way to start and finish the year! Started the year with a Cooper's Hawk on the backyard fence on January 1st. Finished this week with a lifer, Great Gray Owl in the Sax-Sim Bog near Duluth, Minnesota. Really turned up the birding data this year. I took over 5,700 bird photos. I recorded 264 bird species on Ebird, pushing my life list to 362 birds. Traveled all over the country for work and took down time to bird around the country. Love the last shot of the year as I didn't think I would get the Great Gray Owl and actually came up on it as I was leaving for the long drive home from Duluth. Great year of birding for sure!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

 

The tradition continues. 

Poking through the clouds

 

This is a cell phone shot from earlier this year but I always wanted one of those "buildings poking through the Chicago clouds shot", but I only got the one building, the John Hancock. That's fine. It still is a cool shot. The Hancock building is now called by its address, but Chicagoans will keep using the old name. Heading for a landing at Ohare is always interesting when the clouds are so low. We made it, no problem, or I wouldn't be posting this shot. :) Fun capture. 

Too High

 

This shot is from the Great Basin National Park in Utah, where I was out of breath just standing still at 10,000 feet elevation. In August of this year, I got to visit my 31st National Park. That ice is what is left of one of the many glaciers that carved those mountains over the eons. It was a fun hike, although challenging. Spirit is willing. Legs (and lungs) were weak. 

An interesting Illinois duck

 

It is hard to imagine that a bird like this is very common on lakes and larger rivers in Illinois in the winter. These are Hooded Mergansers and the males are quite attractive when they display their beautiful headgear.  It always surprises me to discover that birds like this are local, yet I never noticed them in the first 66 years of living on this planet. I saw this bird a week or so ago at Whalon Lake in Naperville. You just have to be willing to brave the cold and take a walk to see them. They will be here until the Spring when they head back north. When it is very cold, you need to find a larger lake that has not iced over, but there are many days and weeks when it isn't all that cold and the ducks and geese are everywhere. I have also seen them in Florida and New Jersey as this species is very widespread. They are seen throughout the US and Canada except for the dry and arid southwest. So, go out and see if you can find one. Having some binoculars with you will help as waterfowl like to move as far as possible from humans. Good luck in getting out there and if you do see one, let me know!!! 

One Species, so many different looks

 

What I didn't know when I started down this birding path was the variety of different plumages that many birds go through. I didn't know that many females were colored differently than males and many juveniles of both sexes sometimes have different plumages as the adults (usually following the female pattern). I didn't know that birds vary their plumages over the course of the year, with the spring season usually having the male birds at their most colorful. Kinda fits why Fashion Week is in the Spring, right? These 6 shots are all of the American Redstart with two different colorations in the orange and black males, the yellow and black females and a juvenile (don't know which sex that one is). I am just learning now, that these shots aren't of 6 different birds, but of all the same species. Makes it fun and challenging to identify species. It takes a lot of mental work to be a birder--and the American Redstart isn't anywhere near the most difficult of the birds to identify over the year. Gulls, for example, can take up to 4 years to reach their adult plumage with different variations on the way to full, adult colors. Oh my!!!