These are the last pictures I'll post from my Death Valley trip, from the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes. First: I saw no giant worms, which is just as well because I didn't see enough rock there to hold a good sietch. Second: when I saw some different-colored […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

Not a Pickelhaube. (The obelisk is the Washington Monument; the dome is part of the National Museum of Natural History. The picture was taken in front of the the National Gallery of Art.)

It's Superb Owl Sunday! A long-eared owl (Central Park, NYC), an eastern screech owl (Inwood Hill Park, NYC), a barred owl (Central Park, NYC), and a spectacled owl (Arenal Hanging Bridges, Costa Rica). #superbowlsunday #birds #birdcpp #birdsforbecsnan

Three more pictures from my Death Valley trip: a salt flat, a spectacular sunset from Zabriskie Point, and the Glass Bottle House from Rhyolite, a ghost town near the park. Apparently, they were short on building materials, so they used whatever they could, including empty beer and whiskey bottles.

I went to the Blue Mash Nature Trail today in hopes of seeing a rough-legged hawk that has been reported there. No luck on that, but I saw what is (probably) a sharp-shinned hawk and a brown thrasher. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

Some Death Valley terrain. The shapes and banding are amazing.

I visited Death Valley recently, and while this is not a good time of year for birding there, there are many other attractions, including a clear night sky. Here's a bad attempt to photograph Orion's belt (200mm, f/1.8, 3 seconds, ISO 2800)—but what's really […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

In honor of today's weather, here's a picture from my archives of an ice storm in Brooklyn in January 1978. As I recall, there was a coating of at least ¼" (about 6.3 mm) of ice all around. I had to chip a car loose to pick someone up at the airport…

So many fish crows gathering at sunset that it's not just a murder of crows, it's a shareholder meeting of Murder (of Crows), Inc. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan #sunset

Light and shadow games… The first two are silhouettes of bare trees. The third is another bare tree with late afternoon, low angle sun on it, giving it an unusual color cast. The last a shot of a building under construction, so there are no interior lights or window treatments.

No particularly good bird photos yesterday, but I loved this fallen tree, and in particular the way it twisted on the way down, and the almost board-like segments at the fracture zone.

I went out with my camera, looking for birds. I didn't see anything interesting, so I went home to change lenses to do some more artistic photography. Naturally, as soon as I went back outside I saw this Cooper's hawk… #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

I have many photos of white-tailed deer, but none, I think, with this nice a rack of antlers. Theodore Roosevelt Island (which is a lovely place, but right under the flight path to runway 19 at DCA). #wildlifephotography

I went to a new spot today for some year-end birding. The prize for today was a redhead duck—not a lifer for me, but apparently rare around here. I also got a better shot at a wigeon, and saw a ring-necked duck. The other good bird was a Carolina wren—I've […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

A sundog, I believe. (I didn't take out my protractor, but yes, I think it was about 22° from the sun. I didn't see anything on the other side of the sun.)

My 2026 bird calendar is ready! There are three formats, "classic", designed for spiral binding on the long edge at a print shop (cost last year for me was ~$25-30), "onepage", for home printing, and"legal", the same but for legal-size paper. These have US holidays—I can produce other formats […]

A gorgeous day today, and very light traffic, so I could get to a park in Virginia in ~40 minutes instead of the usual hour. The highlight was a soaring bald eagle. Also: a hooded merganser, a great blue heron (which looks like it's sporting a beard…), and a […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

A few weeks ago, I posted a picture of many fish crows perched in a group of trees(https://urbanists.social/@urbandinosaurs/115652346037511286). This is what it's like when they're arriving, every evening around sunset. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

Since today was the the December (Winter Solstice, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere), I figured I'd post two nice wintry scenes appropriate to #silentsunday, both from the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. The first is what I call my holiday card picture.

Temperature was better today, so I went for a walk in a local park: an Eastern bluebird, a white-breasted nuthatch, a Carolina chickadee, and an American goldfinch. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

We got a bit of snow overnight (not much, about 4–5 cm), but it's quite cold today with high winds — -4 ℃ with a wind of >27 kph, making it feel more like -16 ℃ — so I figured I'd post some shivery photos. These two are from the Antarctic about 11 years ago. #winter

To cap off a great photography day, sunset with fish crows. #sunset #birds

I don't often do videos, but this one, of a fourth year bald eagle vocalizing and then bending to eat its fish, was too good to pass up. (I apologize for the framing jumps—the camera was on a tripod, so I don't know what happened.) #birds […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

It was a cold day, just about the freezing point, but the bald eagles at Conowingo Dam put on quite a show today. (Conowingo Dam's Fisherman's Wharf and Pier is one of the best eagle-viewing spots on the east coast.) #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

It was a cold day, just about the freezing point, but the bald eagles at Conowingo Dam put on quite a show today. (Conowingo Dam's Fisherman's Wharf and Pier is one of the best eagle-viewing spots on the east coast.) #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

In the words of spaceweather.com, this is a sunspot about which "[e]ven Richard Carrington would be impressed." #astrophotography #sunspot

You want winter? Two views of some restrooms at Mount Lassen Volcanic National Park in California. The first was taken on May 29, 2011, when the roads through the park had not yet been plowed for the season. The second is from September 21, 2013, when the […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

It's snowing here, for very small values of snow. But since it is snowing, later today I'll post some more seriously wintery pictures. These are two different approaches to photographing the snowflakes in the air, one more naturalistic and one more "artistic". #snow

You've heard of a murder of crows? This is a mass murder of crows—every evening around sunset, literally hundreds of fish crows congregate at the tops of about a dozen bare trees. Shortly after sunset, they start departing, in waves. All the while, they're […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

An Alice's Restaurant Photo Tour: https://urbandinosaurs.org/blog/2024-12/2024-12-07.html

Boat wake.

Contrails, crescent, and sunset. #silentsunday

The light wasn't great yesterday, but I just had to get out… So: a dark-eyed junco (first of season), a downy woodpecker, a red-bellied woodpecker, and a dozing hooded merganser. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

Back to Patuxent National Research Refuge! Two eastern bluebirds (same area, >1 hour apart), a pair of buffleheads, and a killdeer. That one is especially interesting to me—11 years ago, for no reason at all, I decided I wanted to go out and photograph some […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

A (so-so) photo of a belted kingfisher (a bird I see all too seldom—and it kept flying away, so I had a hard time getting this shot), a black vulture flying overhead, and a Carolina chickadee. I'd have called that last bird a black-capped chickadee but […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

Fall foliage #silentsunday

At Huntley Meadows Park in Virginia, a great blue heron going fishing, a yellow-rumped warbler, an eastern bluebird, and a pileated woodpecker. If you look closely at the last picture, you can see a chip of wood above the tip of its beak. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

Riverbend Park, in Virginia: a pileated woodpecker, a yellow-rumped warbler, a red-shouldered hawk (its mate was on a nearby branch), and a northern flicker. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

Last birds from the trip… A Eurasian coot, a stock dove, another grey heron, and a carrion crow. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

On to Amsterdam! These birds, from Vondelpark, were some of my favorites of the trip, and they're all lifers: a jackdaw, a pair of rose-ringed parakeets, an Alexandrine parakeet, and a common wood pigeon. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

More London: a black swan (lifer), two Egyptian geese, a great cormorant (lifer), and a grey heron. Tomorrow: on to Amsterdam! #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

Still in London (St. James Park): a grey heron (lifer, also seen in Amsterdam), a Eurasian moorhen, a barnacle goos (lifer), and a great white pelican (lifer with an asterisk). Why the asterisk? There aren't enough fish in the pond; they're fed by a […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

Flying a few thousand kilometers is a great way to add to one's life list, or at least to see birds one rarely sees. Over the last week, I was in London and Amsterdam, and though I didn't have a lot of time for pictures, I did have some. So: a magpie, a […] [Original post on urbanists.social]

A northern mockingbird, an eastern phoebe, a grey catbird, and two American wigeons (plus a third bird I can't identify), on the Blue Mash nature trail in Montgomery County, Maryland. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

A great blue heron and the moon at sunset. #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan #astrophotography

A tree at sunset.

"The Eye of Heaven". Guastavino tiles,Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, July 9, 2016.

Also from Cape May: a great egret and a snowy egret, a pair of mute swans, six ospreys (I didn't know that they flocked!), and four great black-backed gulls, two adults flanking two younger birds (a family?). #birds #wildlifephotography #birdsforbecsnan

As the Cape May-Lewes Ferry approached Lewes yesterday, a large number of gulls were following the boat. I'm not sure why—drafting? Discarded food? Fish, etc., churned up by the boat? Anyway, that isn't the point of this post. Rather, I'm curious which of […] [Original post on urbanists.social]