I have really enjoyed my birding classes and I have learned something new everyday.  I couldn’t help observe the lady sitting in front of me with her sketch pad book.  She was taking notes on the birds by drawing them.  She was remarkably talented! Her drawings were amazing and she could draw the birds so quickly.  The teacher made a comment about how beneficial it was to sketch the birds you see.  It helps you with learning their field marks and differences.  Since I am such a visual person, I loved the idea.  After class I purchase a small sketch book and began to sketch every bird that I had identified so far.

It is 11/16/12 and I was getting ready to make my favorite trip to San Diego, California, where my daughter lives.  I could hardly wait to bird on a different coastline.  I just knew they would have lots of shore birds.  My daughter was jogging on Coronado Island and I was going to tag along and bird while she was running. I packed my binoculars, field guide,  iPad, sunscreen, floppy hat, and my new sketch journal.

Common Tern

Royal Tern

This was a solo birding trip, I would have no one else to confer with as I identified birds.  I would have to do this on my own.  I had a blast.  The beach was so much fun.  The Sea Gulls were different than the ones in Galveston. I identified Colorado Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls. I saw a Common Tern diving in the water and the majestic Royal Terns hanging out with the gulls. I would love to come back and spend a weekend just birding at the Hotel del Coronado.

The next day my son in law and daughter brought me on a special birding trip to the San Diego River.  One of the first birds we saw was a Belted Kingfisher!  It was a bright blue with the funniest rock star crest.  It was sitting in a tree on the river and periodically dove in the river for a fish dinner. That was an exciting moment, but wait, that wasn’t a shore bird.  I was only going to study shore birds, hmmmm….

Down the river we spotted a whole flock of White Pelicans resting, so beautiful. Other birds that I saw were; Clarks or a Western Grebes, Long-billed Curlews, and a Snowy Egret with his bright yellow feet running around all the other birds in the shallow water.  At the mouth of the river, sitting on posts were Brandt Cormorants, different than the ones we usually see in Galveston.

It was a great trip and I sketched every one of my new identified birds in my journal.  I made a decision at that time to expand my birding to all kinds of birds that hung out near the water.  But I am not messing with those songbirds, they are too hard to identify. Visit again when I talk about birds in the neighborhood.

On November 4, 2013, equipped with new binoculars, field guide and a fellow birding friend we head to Galveston in a search for shore birds.  We really don’t know where to go we just went….Surely birds would be easy to find.  Well, we found out quickly, we should of done more research ahead of time.  First of all, Galveston was hosting a huge motorcycle rally on the island that same weekend!  We had both heard that Bolivar Island had really good birding spots, so we waited in line with 100’s of motorcyclists for the ferry to take us there. Brown Pelicans and Laughing Gulls were flying around.  Double crested Cormorants were  sitting on the docks.  I am not sure but I think they were laughing at us or possibly the other passengers because they knew what was about to happen.  As we board the ferry, the clouds open up and a torrential downpour of rain came down on us.  I did feel sorry for our motorcycle passengers but I was a little scared being on this ferry in this kind of weather.  As soon as we arrived on Bolivar Island we decided to turn around and get off the island. We made a u turn at the convenience store and headed back on the Ferry. 

As we arrived back to Galveston island, we decide to go find a place to eat while the skies emptied their wells.  Everywhere we went there were hundreds of motorcyclists!  Finally we found a local favorite on the west end of the island called, Shrimp and Stuff, always yummy! After lunch we found new energy to explore, the rains have stopped and we drove around to new spots. As we found birds, we had to study our guides and analyze every bird we saw, but we had truly begun to apply what we had learned in class.  Look at the size, shape, beaks, legs, behavior, plummage, and field marks. it was working but we really depended on each other’s analysis, not yet feeling comfortable with our own identification.  Driving by Galveston Country Club golf course we thought we saw a Tri-colored Heron, (but now I know it was a Great Blue Heron in full plumage) A common beginner birding mistake, we saw lots of colors so we were sure it was a Tri-colored Heron. We saw and accurately identified, many birds in a cement ditch outside of Moody Gardens, Killdeer, Lesser Yellow Legs, and more. As we walked along the seawall at the west end of the beach, we saw a Willet, and several Sanderlings.

All in all, for my first serious birding adventure I felt good about  learning a new hobby, but I knew I had a lot more to learn!  Visit again to here about journaling and the next adventure in California!

One of my good friends asked me if I would be interested in attending a birding class at Rice University’s Continuing Studies classes. It was a class on Shore Birds being taught by a well repected birder, Glen Olson. Even though going to a night class would be tough after work, I wanted to learn more about birds like the Great White Egret. I was convinced that I would only want to learn about shorebirds because they were fairly easy to identify. I didn’t think I would be interested in any other kinds of birds. (Was I ever wrong).

The first class was a great overview of what to look for when you are trying to identify birds. Glen taught us to look at the shape of the bird, the size, the beak, the legs, and other distinguishing characteristics. You really can’t count on the color of feathers all the time because birds have different colored feathers in different stages of their lives. Birds in breeding plummage can look entrely different than what they look like in non-breeding time. Even some of the behaviors of the birds were important to observe. Glen even demonstrated some great birding moves!

Our teacher recommended that every birder needs to have two things, a good pair of binoculars and a birding field guide. After the first class, I purchased the necessary tools for my new hobby. I highly recommend these things. Binoculars are the most important tool. I purchased a Nikon Trailblazer 8 X 42. ($105.) It was a good pair to get started with, but for my birthday my daughter bought me a even better pair, Prostaff 7-8 x 42 but the lense was longer! ($199.) Now I have a pair I can keep in the car at all times and my extra special birthday binoculars for my birding excursions. The field guide is the next most important purchase I made for birding. You have to find a guide you really like. The guide I have grown to love is the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Jon L. Dunn and Johnathon Alderfer. I also recommend the Audobon Guides for North American Birds for iPads or IPhones. Not only does it have real bird photos but it has bird sounds as well.

Now I am fully equipped and I am ready to go on birding excursions. Check in soon to hear about some of my first ventures!

Welcome to my blog on my new hobby, Birding!

They say it all begins with a spark bird.  I am not sure what bird I can identify as my original spark bird but I think it was probably the Great White Egret.  It is hard to chose just one bird because I have always loved birds.  After boring my Face Book followers with my birding escapades, I have decided to blog about my birding experiences. I am going to blog using my original photos. I hope you will see improvement in my photography as I write this blog.  My pictures are amateur pictures, but they are mine. Tomorrow I will write about how my love for birds became a more serious passion.