Hi Tweeters!

My friends and family finally convinced me to set up a web page to display
some of my bird photos.

First and foremost, I am an avid birder and not a professional photographer.
None of my successful shots are attributed to my camera skills. I don't
have time to fiddle around with complex equipment and was lucky to purchase
a simple but excellent digital camera. I am having a blast experimenting
with bird photography. Challenging but fun!!

I am just in the infancy stages of setting up the webpage but thought I
include my most recent luck seeing a gorgeous DUSKY GROUSE display this
weekend within 5 feet from me for more than 30 minutes. It was
SPECTACULAR!!

Their hooting is a much more muffled version of a sooty grouse. It was
bearly audible within 60-70 feet away. While driving down a road, the
exposure of its bright and distinctive white orbital ring around the
raspberry air sac was extremely conspicous. It was displaying about 5 feet
from the road while hunkered down in a sage brush. I would have easily
missed him with seeing this feature.

After extensively studying my photos and counting the number of tail
feathers (a total of 20), the male bird is clearly a paler adult Interior
Form as indicated by the Sibley's guide. The amount of gray and width of
the terminal tail band is tough to scale and see. Even with the great
lighting on that day, it is barely visible when the bird fully expands his
tail. Count carefully since the middle one is tucked.

I have also included some of my best SPRUCE GROUSE photos from last fall.
They are my favorite grouse. So zen-like and beautiful with fine intricate
patterns.

Hope you enjoy the photos as much as I did seeing him display. I welcome all
feedback.

Here is the address to my webpage and MORE PHOTOS to come!!

http://www.pbase.com/spruce_grouse/root

Good birding to you,

Khanh Tran (Portland, Oregon)