This year was great for rare spring migrants passing through the Reno Nevada area. The birds in this blog I had photographed all less than an hour from my home below Mt Rose SW of Reno, Nevada. I used the ebird.org database to establish how rare the birds where based on the number of reports over the last 20 years.
2019 was a great year and I had more than normal favorites photos. The first favorite came 2 days into 2019 when I captured a Ferruginous Hawk taking flight and the last one was taken on 12-20 during the Fallon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) of a Western Meadowlark signing and I really like the bluish bokeh. The Ferruginous was perched on a power pole and I immediately pulled over.
Another all day outing was to the Patagonia area with the first stop being to Patagonia State Park. One of my favorite birds from the trip were the Pyrrhuloxia. I saw one briefly on the first day but when I was at the Canoa Ranch Conservation Park I heard an unfamiliar call so I started to track it down.
Madera Canyon is one of the premier birding hotspots in the Tucson area and I spent about 6 hours there. At the Santa Rita Lodge they put out hummingbird and seed feeders, which really brings in the birds. I captured this Hepatic Tanager in the sun allowing me to increase the shutter speed to 1/800s, stop down to f/5.6 and with a low ISO125.
Jeannine, our Choco Lab Diesel, our Leonberger Kaja, and me hit the road on December 5th with the Tucson area being our destination. One of my favorite photos from the trip was this Painted Redstart. I headed to Madera Canyon about an hour before sunrise. I heard a bird calling and I didn’t recognize the song. I hunted down the sound and was rewarded with this beautiful life bird.
