birds.html

I have always loved birds and studying them and observing them has been very interesting to me. I once had a friend who had a magnificent red tail hawk, and I would often go visit him and watch him work with the hawk. We would take the hawk out to a rural area near where he lived and "fly" him for exercise and it was a beautiful sight. The hawk always returned to my friend when he would signal it with whistle and throw the lure in big circles around his head. Recently I have been photographing birds that visit our garden. What magnificence as they fly and glide in and out of the garden. What fun! I shall continue photographing them along with my flowers and I hope to add new photos to this Bird page soon. ----BT March 26, 2006

Blue Jay

March 21, 2008

Photo by BT

A House Sparrow, sometimes called an English Sparrow, on the top of the fence in the back garden.

June 10, 2007

Photo by BT

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel

Lense: Canon EF75-300mm F4-5.6 IS

"I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn." ~Henry David Thoreau

Authors note: I had been waiting near the feeder with my camera early on in the day. This spectacular Anna's Hummingbird came gliding in, first to the sage plants with their purple blossoms, then over to the feeder. The bird hovered for what seemed a long time, then fed and flitted away with all its beauty-a wonderful encounter on this spring March day!!--BT, March 22, 2006

Gentle day's flower-

The hummingbird competes

With the stillness of the air.

----Chogyam Trungpa

Anna's Hummingbird coming to the feeder

March 22, 2006

Photo by BT

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT

Lens: Canon EF75-300mm F4-5.6 IS

The Hummingbird

The sunlight speaks. And it's voice is a bird:
It glitters half-guessed half seen half-heard
Above the flower bed. Over the lawn ...
A flashing dip and it is gone.
And all it lends to the eye is this --
A sunbeam giving the air a kiss.

by Harry Kemp

Author's Note: The Mockingbird in the photo below has claimed a corner of our backyard garden, and it is perfectly fine with us!! He flits about day in and day out--atop the house, atop the fence, foraging on the ground, in the grass and so on. It is wonderful to have him here with us in the springtime. He is indeed a very welcome guest!! We even call him "Our Mockie!"-----BT, March 26, 2006

Our Mockingbird atop the fence surveying his realm

March 26, 2006P

Photo by BT

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT

Lens: Canon EF75-300mm F4-5.6 IS

"To me, the garden is a doorway to other worlds; one of them, of course, is the world of birds. The garden is their dinner table, bursting with bugs and worms and succulent berries."

----Anne Raver

The Mockingbird posing on the ground

March 26, 2006

"Poor indeed is the garden in which birds find no homes."

----Abram L. Urban

A Black Phoebe

March 22, 2006

Photo by BT

"There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,

Or for many years or streching eyeless years,

The early lilacs became part of the child,

And grass and white and red morning-glories and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird..."

-Walt Whitman

A Hummingbird at the feeder

August 2005

Photo by BT

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT

Lense: Canon EF75-300mm F4-5.6 IS

The hummers come on

Silver transparent wings,

Hovering and skimming

The flowers to the feeder.

Beauty in motion!

----BT

A White Crowned Sparrow in the grass in the backyard garden

March 24, 2006

Photo by BT

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT