A short trip down to San Francisco Bay Area to visit family on the weekend
had good results in the bird photography section. The highlight for me was
an opportunity to photograph a Dunlin that is in in-between plumage. Half
alternate and half basic. http://birdcentral.net/dunlin2.htm. A Turkey
Vulture was hanging out at a pretty low altitude and didn't want to fly
yet. http://birdcentral.net/turkeyvulture3.htm. And a group of Western
Gulls demonstrated interesting behavior. I realized as I watched these
birds that there were two "couples". The two inner birds kept up a lot of
vocalizing at each other and periodically raising their wings to each
other, and then they would turn and bow and bill with the outside birds.
This whole process went on for about a half hour and was ended when the two
interior birds started fighting. Then everybody flew off out of sight. This
was new behavior to me. http://birdcentral.net/western3.htm. I will
rearrange this image after I spend some time figuring out how to better
represent the action. And since I was visiting my Mom it just seems proper
that i would have a chance of photographing a California Towhee in her
front yard. http://birdcentral.net/caltowhee.htm. (The top picture) When I
lived in the Bay Area for 35 years I really never spent much time
photographing them.

Jim

Jim Rosso
jrosso at mediaseek.com
MediaSeek Technologies a division of bigchalk.com
Bellevue, Washington
425- 451-1111 ext. 139