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The Helpful Birder

Featured Posts General Birding

Where to Find Birds

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Featured Posts General Birding

Not All Blue Birds are Bluebirds

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Featured Posts General Birding

How Nature Reuses Its Resources

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Bird Species Featured Posts

Species Spotlight: Swallow-tailed Kites

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  • How to Photograph Birds in Flight
    Bird Photography

    How to Photograph Birds in Flight

    One of the hardest things to photograph in nature is a bird in flight. It’s a technique that takes both study and practice. If you’d like to improve your bird in…

    February 7, 2022
  • judging the size of a bird
    General Birding

    Why the Size of a Bird is Such a Difficult Field Indicator

    One useful way to identify a bird is by size. Everyone knows an eagle is bigger than a sparrow, a mallard duck bigger than a cardinal. In fact, it’s a great…

    January 12, 2022
  • Where to find birds
    Featured Posts General Birding

    Where to Find Birds

    Birds are everywhere, right? That’s totally true, except when you’re armed with your field guide, a pair of binoculars, a packed lunch, and a camera. Then they’re nowhere to be found.…

    January 6, 2022
  • Eastern bluebird, Flagler County, Florida
    Featured Posts General Birding

    Not All Blue Birds are Bluebirds

    For beginning birders, the easiest way to identify a bird is by color. Northern Cardinals are red, American Goldfinches are yellow, Eastern Bluebirds are blue. (After all, that’s why they’re called…

    January 6, 2022
  • Featured Posts General Birding

    How Nature Reuses Its Resources

    I find it fascinating how resources are reused by nature in many ways. One example of how nature reuses things is a basic hole in a pine tree. I have really…

    August 2, 2020
  • Florida Scrub-Jays
    Bird Species

    Species Spotlight: Florida Scrub-Jays

    Many of us here in eastern North America know and love (or hate) the beautiful Blue Jay. But there are many other jays present in the US as well, and one…

    May 27, 2020
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This is the best shot of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet th This is the best shot of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet that I’ve ever gotten. I’d still like to see the red crest, but maybe one day!
It was hard to decide which Abert’s Towhee to shar It was hard to decide which Abert’s Towhee to share. The one you’ll see in the first 4 photos gave us such good looks, almost posing, but I think something is wrong. It’s missing feathers around its eyes, suggesting mites or a disease, or maybe just molting... I’m not sure. I would welcome any insight. The fifth photo was in the same spot, but a different individual with the more normal darker face.

The individual that was actually my lifer was earlier in the day, but the shots are poor.

374 (US) / 545 (World)
One of the best things about birding with a local One of the best things about birding with a local guide is knowing how special a bird is when THEY get excited. My guide, Gordon, was all about these Lawrence’s Goldfinches. And I see why - they’re very unique and somewhat geographically restricted. The first and third photos are the male (same individual) and the second photo is the female.

Lifer 373 (US) / 574 (World)
Not the best photograph by any means, but here are Not the best photograph by any means, but here are two Hepatic Tanagers - 372 on my US list, 543 on my world list. I was happy to get both the male (red) and female (yellow) in the same frame. This is as close as they came to each other…maybe they don’t really like each other that much 😄

Not photographed: 371 / 542 was a Rufous-crowned Sparrow.
American Snout butterflies are very easy to spot i American Snout butterflies are very easy to spot in Arizona; they were all over the place, especially in Phoenix. This photo is of one in Madera Canyon, near Tucson.
Lifer 370 / 541 is this Bewick’s Wren, who has suc Lifer 370 / 541 is this Bewick’s Wren, who has such a beautiful song! We saw this one on the trail that runs on the other side of the creek behind the Santa Rita lodge.

Lifer 368 / 539 (2nd and 3rd photo) was a Townsend’s Warbler. Not great shots, but I’m happy to have some photos of it.

Not shown: 369 / 540 Hutton’s Vireo - never saw it, but we heard them several times, again on the trail.
Lifer 366 (US) / 537 (World) for me is the Pine Si Lifer 366 (US) / 537 (World) for me is the Pine Siskin, and 367/ 538 is the Lesser Goldfinch. You’ll see some of both in these photos. The image at the water feature that has two different species shows the goldfinch on the left and the siskin on the right.
Lifer 365 (US) / 535 (World) is this adorable Brid Lifer 365 (US) / 535 (World) is this adorable Bridled Titmouse. There were tons, but they spent so much time eating that I don’t have many photos except gathered around a feeder. I did think these three were particularly cute, though!
Although not rare, I was very excited to get to se Although not rare, I was very excited to get to see the Mexican Jay (Aphelocoma wollweberi) in Arizona. Although not mentioned in the bird’s common name, it’s actually a scrub-jay, in the same genus as our Florida Scrub-jays. I noted a lot of similar behavior as well, some of which you can glean from the different micro-habitats in these photos.

Lifer 364 (US) / 535 (World)

#mexicanjay #santaritalodge #maderacanyon #arizonabirds
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Red-cockaded woodpecker foraging for food in the woods at St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge in Wakulla, Florida (not far from Tallahassee)
Red cockaded woodpecker
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Recent Posts

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