Happy New Year. Here are some of my favorite images take over 2023. I really like the image below of an American Kestrel looking back at me. He was perched on a light post with under a mostly sunny sky so I could us a shutter speed of 1/1000s, an f/9.0, and ISO400. Some birds will let you get close and others will not like Warblers. I was able to get within 10m and just sat there looking at the lake and me.
The Pinyon Jay is charismatic member of the Corvid family and can be found throughout the Reno/Carson City area in the right habitat. I found the Jay below at Topaz Lake in a transitional habitat of Pinyon/Juniper and Sagebrush. They were right next to the road and let me get very close.
Lincoln's Sparrows are secretive and have a wren like song. They can be found in wet mountainous meadows from May through July in the West and into Canada through Alaska. They move to lower elevations in the Winter and I found this one along the Truckee River at McCarran Ranch, which is a few miles east of the Reno/Sparks area.
Since moving to the Reno, NV area in 2016, I’ve been searching for the Black-backed Woodpecker. I first saw one in the northern part of the Idaho panhandle but no photos. I have heard then 2-3 times in the eastern Sierras west of Reno and Carson City but no photos.
I planned a trip through the Smoke Creek Desert in the hopes of photographing a Yellow-breasted Chat. The Yellow-breasted Chat has always been a mystery to taxonomists: it looks similar to Warblers but is larger, has a more varied songs and calls, and has different behavior and anatomy compared to warblers. For decades the Chat was place in the warbler family, but in the late 2010s this Chat was given its own family (Icteriidae), noting the differences from a Warbler.
