Category: Uncategorized
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Waterfowl on Frances Short Pond (Flagstaff)
It’s been a frightfully warm winter, but not so warm as to completely melt the ice on our fair city’s beloved municipal pond near a couple of our public schools. Frances Short was an “educator and city councilperson” in Flagstaff. (For more information, click here.) The pond and its immediate environs are home to waterfowl…
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Spring (or at least nest-building material) is in the mouth
It’s always nice when I discover that my camera has seen more than I did when I took a shot. That has happened lately, as spring gets ready to turn to summer, when I see “Well well, the little creature seems to be building a nest!” (Of course I am also very aware of seeing…
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Photo Walk With Jim Wilce, June 24
Ordinary Cameras, Extraordinary Encounters:Taking Wildlife Photos From the Heart A Workshop Led by Jim Wilce, and Sponsored by the Northern Arizona Audubon Society Saturday, June 24, 8-10 a. m., Kachina Wetlands (near Flagstaff, Arizona) What do you want from outdoor/ wildlife photographs? How can you take photos that you and others will enjoy? And how…
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Dragonflies mating mid-air
One of my favorite places in Flagstaff is Frances Short Pond. It is a hotspot for members of the Order Odonata— dragonflies and damselflies like the one below, which is, I believe, a “bluet.” But now the show I promised—a shaky video of two orange dragonflies and their mid-air mating dance. The still photos on…
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Reflective great(-tailed) hop
Back in April I visited Frances Short Pond here in Flagstaff— a pond fished by man (sometimes woman) and osprey alike. Blackbirds and grackles occupy trees and the marshy island in the middle of the small pond. Here is a great-tailed grackle (I think), caught mid-hop. Click here to see the full-sized photo of the…
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Unidentified insect: Beetle?
I’m posting this on Reddit ( /r/whatsthisbug). For you who once saw me post HERE rather regularly, I apologize for my long absence and offer this strikingly beautiful insect (a beetle?). I was seeing this orange-winged insect (probably a beetle) this spring, then suddenly it reappeared today in the Rio de Flag, Cheshire neighborhood, Flagstaff,…
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What’s With the V-Formation?
It is an inspiring, though common, thing to see flocks of ducks or geese flying overhead in V-formation. A duck flying alone is also beautiful, as is this mallard… http://www.wilcephotos.com/Northern-Arizona/JMW-Birds-Bees-Etc/i-qndbZbn/0/Th/BIF-Duck%3B%20BubblingPonds%3B%20IMG_9073%20C1PSD1-Th.jpg … but a group of birds synchronizing or coordinating their behavior presents us with a different kind of beauty. This group of Canada Geese flying…
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Hawks: Chasing and Being Chased
Anywhere you see hawks you are likely to see them being chased by smaller birds and not just chasing after them. The following photos (some of which are links to wilcephotos.com) tell two stories. The first story consists of a single photograph of what we might expect to be most common—a bigger, more carnivorous bird…
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The Ducks That Swim in Circles
On a recent trip to the wonderful Sedona Wetlands Preserve, described in a previous post on this blog, I shot video footage of a fascinating group behavior by ducks, specifically Northern Shovelers. Shovelers are “dabbling” or surface-feeding ducks. The species has evolved a collaborative feeding strategy. Swimming in what John Andrew Eastman calls a “pinwheel”…
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What Wikipedia calls the “default desert bird”
If you have never heard of Curve-Billed Thrashers, you probably don’t live in or near a desert. But if you google “default desert bird” you’ll see a lot of text etc. devoted to Thrashers. Unfortunately, the phrase “default desert bird,” with or without proper attribution is a misquote. At least Wikipedia rightly cites Dunne as the…
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Arizona Desert Botanical Garden 11/24
The “DBG” is a source of endless pleasure, a space of glorious plants that attract equally wondrous birds and butterflies! Here are three shots from a recent visit. Stay tuned as I post more photos from this visit to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. Click here to visit my professional photography page and…
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Four Raptors
Raptors are birds of prey. I try not to overuse the word “awesome,” but raptors are awesome, awe-inspiring. I love it when raptors, who have extremely sharp eyes, are so generous as to allow me to photograph them. So, I have gathered here, in one place, photos of four different raptors— three diurnal and one…
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Hummingbirds!
I’ve pasted a photo of a hummingbird perched on a pine branch in our (Cheshire) neighborhood in Flagstaff, AZ. How can one NOT love hummingbirds! I’m including a link here to a photo of another female broad-tailed hummingbird in what is probably an even more typical hummer habitat— a field of free-ranging if not “wild”…
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Do birds pant in the heat?
Some, including Kathryn Knight in the Journal of Experimental Biology, say they do. And during our visit to Phoenix yesterday we were overwhelmed with the heat, especially as we tried to amble around the Arizona Desert Botanical Garden. The roadrunner pictured here might have been feeling the heat, too. Or I might have caught him…
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Purple is the color…
The other day I snapped these two pictures of two different purple flowers. They underscore what the beauty of the place we live— Flagstaff, AZ. The liatris grows in our front yard. For more information and a better shot, click here to go to my SmugMug page. The other purple flower, called vervain, grows wild…
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