Tag: #birds
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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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Laguna Beach sojourn
I’ve spent the last week in southern California— in Claremont (subject of a future posting) and Laguna Beach, a lovely smallish city lapped by the waves of the Pacific Ocean, some-time home to dolphins, with attractive old cottages in the town above, overlooking the ocean. Photos from this trip can be found here: http://www.wilcephotos.com/Beyond-northern-Arizona/ I…
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Looking back: New and old photos
I was looking through some photos that are up to a decade old today, because I remembered some of them fondly. Three cameras are represented here— a Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z6 (2004-2008), a Fujifilm Finepix S6500fd, and my current Canon Powershot SX50 HS (with just a few shots between the Finepix era and the Powershot era…
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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…

