Announcing the Bird Walker 2008 Wall Calendar

I'm pleased to announce that my 2008 wall calendar is ready! Each month features plenty of space for writing appointments plus one of twelve images I made this year while traveling from the marshes of Florida to the alpine meadows of the Canadian Rockies.

If you don't mind spoilers, you can look at a web preview of the artwork, or read these liner notes.

This calendar does make an excellent gift! If you're in the bay area, you can buy them from me directly, send email for more information. If you're out east or would like a calendar shipped directly, please visit my cafepress store.

Note: friends and family should watch their mailboxes for a copy accompanying the christmas letter, like last year.

December, Laughing Gull

Laughing Gull
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Captiva Island, Florida [taken December 2006]

East-coast birders are very familiar with the Laughing Gull, but California birders like me find them fresh and intriguing. The black legs and black bill indicate that this bird is in non-breeding winter plumage. On the sandy beach of Captiva island, with the beautiful blue Gulf of Mexico in the background and puffy clouds overhead, this day sums up the best I can hope for myself and for you in 2008; many wonderful days spent outdoors in the presence of beautiful birds and gorgeous weather.

November, Acorn Woodpeckers

Acorn Woodpeckers
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Guadelupe Oak Grove Park, San Jose, California [taken August 2007]

Acorn Woodpecker colonies gather and store acorns in granary trees. Each of the thousands of acorn they collect has to be fit into the proper-sized hole for the long winter. As the acorns dry, the woodpeckers move the shrinking acorns to smaller holes to keep them from falling out. Acorn Woodpeckers use a hard surface, such as the top of a tree limb or a wooden light post as an anvil to crack open the dry acorns and eat them at times when insects are not readily available. I love the clown-like facial coloring of the Acorn Woodpeckers, especially the round black patch surrounding the bill. In this photo, a male sits a the top of the tree while the female (identified by the black patch on the crown of her head) lands on the same tree, carrying an acorn in her bill.

October, Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Mount Umunum Road, Los Gatos, California [taken May 2007]

I drove the 35 windy miles to Mount Umunhum in Spring 2007 searching for a Black-chinned Sparrow. It was a lonely, foggy morning at the top of the mountain and I shot photos of several other birds while hunting for the sparrow. One special treat was seeing this Spotted Towhee at the top of a bush. "Spotties" are notorious skulkers, more often heard than seen, but it seemed the birds allowed me to approach more closely in the dense fog of this early morning. Singing is a full-body experience with this bird, and his manic, red eye increases the intensity of the moment.

September, American Goldfinch

American Goldfinch
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Half Moon Bay, California [taken October 2007]

American Goldfinches are a common subject for photographers and artists in their bright yellow summer plumage, but their subtle winter feathering is equally beautiful and a good sign of the changing seasons. A flock of goldfinches were feeding in thistles near the entrance to Venice Beach in Half Moon Bay. When the flock flew off, I set up my camera to wait for their return. The muted backdrop of dry grasses is another sign that we are entering fall and ready for the winter rains to come refresh the landscape.

August, Tufted Puffin

Tufted Puffin
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Bodega Bay [September 2007]

Tufted Puffins wear jaunty breeding plumage from April to September. At the time of this photo, the bird is shifting into winter plumage,when his entire head will be grey-black and his yellow cere (the skin where the bill meets the head ) will turn black to match the head. Our ocean-going birding trip in September out of Bodega Bay with Shearwater Journeys had amazingly calm seas and overcast skies, which allowed me to keep shooting all day. When we found this puffin on the water, the captain cut the engines and allowed us to drift close to the bird -- so close we could see the bird's feet under the surface of the ocean. The two furrows in the bird's upper mandible indicate that this bird is 3-4 years old and will reach sexual maturity in the next year or so.

July, White-tailed Ptarmigan

White-tailed Ptarmigan
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada [July 2007]

We traveled to Canada in summer 2007 with Paradise Birding, on a trip led by Steve Shunk and David Wimpfheimer. This was our only day above the treeline at Jasper National Park. We walked from the tramway terminus up a gently-sloping path around the mountain, where we found a female Ptarmigan with her brood. Higher up, at the very top of the mountain, we found 3 males in close proximity. As you can imagine, we were all very excited about this moment and tried contain our enthusiasm so as not to frighten the (nearly oblivious) birds. The ptarmigan males did not really respond to our presence -- they seemed more interested in posturing for each other, taking dustbaths and short naps. Their half-white, half-speckled summer plumage is perfect camouflage for their summer habitat among mossy rocks with splotches the same color as the bird. Photographing these birds was an intense emotional experience, made more intense by a mysterious problem with my camera. As the ptarmigan males ran towards me, my camera refused to take any shots, and I nearly threw it off the mountain! Afterwards, I spent a few quiet moments just observing the birds, freed of the need to make photographs and just able to enjoy them.

June, Western Scrub Jay

Western Scrub Jay
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Hidden Villa, Los Altos, CA [June 2007]

As a member of the Bay Area Bird Photographers, I keep up with hot tips posted on our local email list. This cherry tree at Hidden Villa was mentioned on our list as providing both an abundant food source and a beautiful photographic backdrop for robins, jays and grosbeaks, who seemed to take turns at the tree, giving me a chance to photograph each one, like students lining up for yearbook pictures. The California scrub-jay is intensely blue and white, where the interior race is much more muted in color.

May: Yellow-headed Blackbird in flight

Yellow-headed Blackbird in flight
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Sierra Valley, CA [taken June 2007]

This is a moment captured from our first summer birding trip in the Sierra, led by the inestimable Bob Power. We parked at a bend in the road through a marshy/agricultural area and walked back towards the main concentration of reeds. Yellow-headed blackbirds were flying, perched, feeding, interacting all around us. Their calls are nasal, chirpy, and even buzzy like a log going through a sawmill, so different from the Red-winged blackbirds we hear in our local marshes. This shot shows a lot about the anatomy of a bird -- look at the way the breast muscles are activated when the wings are fully extended behind the bird, ready to provide air braking for the imminent landing in the reeds.

April, Great Egret

Great Egret
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Captiva Island, Florida [taken December 2006]

Captiva is an exclusive beach community just beyond Sanibel Island. Formerly, it was an independent island, but it has largely become attached to Sanibel by a roadway and silt. We arrived about 10 am, after a visit to Ding Darling NWR. The public beach was lined with fishermen casting into the surf and the herons were sticking near the fishermen to grab any cast off bait or small-fry that might be tossed aside. Our photo group took advantage off the habits these birds have learned from close association with the fishermen -- tossing a few bait fish in the direction which gave the most pleasing background for the photo. Great Egrets are found in most coastal and southern states. They are stately and zen-like with their dramatically contrasting black legs, white plumage and yellow bills.

March, Short-billed Dowitcher

Short-billed Dowitcher
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Radio Road pond, Foster City, California [taken April 2007]

The pond at the very end of Radio Road is a great location for photography. it has great afternoon light and the photographer can creep right down to the water's edge. Getting down at eye level with the birds helps you see the world from their view point. Dowitchers spend most of their time in the water, "probing the ground with a sewing-machine like motion" so it was a real treat to see this bird fully out of the water. If you look closely, you can see partial webbing between the toes of both feet. The breeding colors and the bunchy posture give this bird a lot of personality. Identifying dowitcher species is tough, but in breeding plumage the spotting pattern on the breast and sides plus the extensive white on the underparts make this bird a Short-billed (Thanks to Al Jaramillo and Stephanie Ellis for help with this identification).

February: Allen's Hummingbird

Allen's Hummingbird
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Presidio of San Francisco, California [taken March 2007]

Photographing wildlife in the park areas of The Presidio is a bit surreal -- surrounded by the busy city of San Francisco, the open landscape of The Presidio provides small oases for migrating birds, like this Allen's hummingbird, drinking from a spring in the park. On the weekday morning when I shot this male Allen's, Ashok Khosla and I had the park pretty much to ourselves, except for the occasional dog walker passing the spring where the hummingbirds had stopped to drink. Distinguishing this "orange rumped" Allen's from a "green-backed" Rufous hummingbird relies on other photos in the series, where we can see that his outer tail feathers are narrow and pin-like.

January, Burrowing Owl

Burrowing Owl
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

suburban Cape Coral, Florida [taken December 2006]

This owl is in trouble in Florida just as he is in California -- Burrowing Owl habitat is highly sought-after for development and the owls are strongly faithful to specific burrow sites, so it is difficult to relocate them as their habitat is consumed. Although I think of this as a California bird, it can be found in Florida, Texas and other southern states. The eyes of the Florida birds I photographed were much brighter and more saturated than their west coast cousins. Reflected in this bird's you see the rooflines of the suburban houses and other structures surrounding the burrow. Fortunately, the white flowers in this abandoned field make a pleasant setting.

Many Questions at Lake Merritt

Ashok and I had many questions at Lake Merritt this morning:

(1) The first and most pressing of which was, "Where is the Tufted Duck?" There had been email reports of Tufted Duck in the week leading up to our visit, but we were unable to locate any Tufted Ducks among what must have been 1,000 scaup on the lake.

(2) Whose feet are these? It's not a really hard quiz for those who have birded around here, especially if you peek at the tail feathers.

(3) What duck is this? I had a diagnosis in mind while I was shooting this ambiguous brown female duck, and the more I looked at it afterwards I realized it was an usual bird.

Hunting for Warblers

Yellow Warbler
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Following a hot tip from fellow photographer Tom Grey, Ashok and I set out to find some warblers in the fennel around Palo Alto Duck Pond. On our second lap around the trail behind the ranger house, we had a good flock of warblers and sparrows and some nice light.

Gallinago Go Go's California Fall Challenge

Today we went with Lisa Myers on a fundraising Big Day trip as part of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory California Fall Challenge.

First stop of the day was Zmudowski State Beach. This out-of-the way approach road, many birds were seen on the drive to the beach. A Virginia Rail responded to a single taped call by flying across the entire pond directly toward us, landing at our feet.

Our sightings for Moss Landing State Beach include birds seen from the Moss Landing Marina as well as Jetty Road. The group was very excited to see six Snowy Plovers roosting quietly on the beach.

At Moonglow Dairy, we drove in through blackbird flocks, scoped nearby ponds for shorebirds, briefly checked edges of Eucalyptus grove. Circling Golden Eagle harassed by Red-tailed Hawks and Pectoral Sandpiper were the highlights of this stop.

Our lunch stop was the Embassay Suites hotel parking lot, where we immediately found the roosting Peregrine Falcon in the 'S' of the hotel logo. We showed it to a variety of hotel guests before moving to the lagoon.

After lunch we drove to Jacks Peak, which was very quiet. We worked hard to get seven woodland species in return for our $20 admission fee, a pricey $3 per bird.

The only target bird for this trip was the California Condor, so we made a beeline for the area south of Andrew Molera, stopping only to pick up Pelagic Cormorant and Black Oystercatcher on the rocky coast below highway one. South of Big Sur Station, Harold said to Lisa, "What's that?" We pulled off to investigate a large perched bird with no feathers on its head. It was clearly a Condor perched on a snag. While watching this bird, other team members found four more Condors circling the ridge line to the south. Great views were had by all.

Last bird of the day was the Great Horned Owl on Dolan Road in near total darkness. Preliminary tally is 108 species in Monterey County. Thanks, Lisa, for an excellent day!

Half Moon Bay en fuego

American Goldfinch
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

All the cool kids with their big lenses are heading down to Blufftop Park on Popular Street in Half Moon Bay, where a irruption year for Meadow Voles is leading to a really big population of Red-tailed Hawks, White-tailed Kites, Northern Harriers, and American Kestrels. Go over to flickr to see some cool midair shots of Kites duelling. The shot of the day, though, was this American Goldfinch showing its non-breeding plumage to great effect.

More pictures here.

Notes from an Alameda County Big Day

On September 23rd, our three person crew met up in Bob's driveway at 2:30 AM with the goal of seeing as many bird species as possible in Alameda County in one day. By 2:55 we had our first bird: Great Horned Owl calling at Redwood Regional Park. At 8 pm we wrapped up with bird #128, a Common Tern at Berkeley Marina. Our first warbler of the day, found at Del Valle Regional Park, turned out to be the bird that
followed us throughout the county -- Yellow Warbler. On reveiwing the ABA rules, we find that we can count our 3 partially seen birds for a Grand Total of 131 species or 52.610% of Alameda County.

(note: for full details see birdwalker.)

Site-by-site notes
Our itinerary was heavily researched and frequently rearranged during the four weeks between coming up with the idea to do a big day and our chosen date -- chosen because it was the only free day in our calendars inside the SFBBO Fall Challenge period. We'll be using these notes to enter our total in the Fall Challenge contest and for planning our next Alameda Big Day.

2:55 - 4:15 am - Redwood Regional Park

Much quiet listening and tape playing only turned up two owl species - Great Horned (between 2 and 6 individuals) and Western Screech (4 individuals). A slow start.

4:45 - 5:40 Arrowhead Marsh

Walking in the back way let us look at Black-crowned Night-heron, Mallard, Mourning Dove and Great Egret in the dark on our way to the Rail Spot, where both Clapper & Virginia Rail obliged, but Sora and (elusive?) Black Rail did not.

6:45 - 7:00 Mines Road

A quick pullout turned up California Thrasher and Rufous-crowned Sparrow. One of our biggest scouting successes was knowing where to go to get these dry, interior species quickly.

7:00 - 8:30 Del Valle Regional Park

A great spot for dawn - and we chose the specific stop inside the park based on email sent to the EBB mailing list the night before. Our "species per hour" average jumped way up, as we entered Del Valle with 21 species (that's four per hour) and left at 8:30 with 53 (slightly over ten per hour). Specialties of the location were : Wilson's Snipe, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Spotted Sandpiper, Osprey, Yellow-billed Magpie and Green Heron.

8:45 - 9:00 - Murietta's Well

This quick stop for a specialty bird did not go as planned. We left without the Eurasian Collared Dove, but traded that miss for a Western Tanager. And Yellow Warblers.

9:15 - 9:30 - Owl Road

Another great scouting success - knowing where to find a Burrowing Owl, Say's Phoebe, Loggerhead Shrike and (possible) Golden Eagle was very helpful in picking up 6 species in about 15 minutes. Onward!

9:55 - 10:10 - Tassajara Creek park

Reported on EBB, this park was another quick dive into known birds, turning up two good warblers and a House Sparrow.

11:00 - 1:30 pm - Frank's Dump

Eucalpytus / bushes around the parking lot had a Lincoln's Sparrow, Warbling Vireo, more Yellow Warblers, and a White-Crowned sparrow.

The large pond south of the parking lot obliged with a couple of duck species we hadn't gotten at Del Valle - Greater Scaup, Ruddy Duck, and Northern Pintail - along with an Eared Grebe.

The long walk out to the main shorebird roost was wearing -- some of us were dragging a bit by this time. But the payoff was *huge* with large flocks of Western Sandpiper and Black-bellied Plover harboring small numbers of Sanderling (10ish), Ruddy Turnstone (3), Black Turnstone (1), Red Knot (20?), and Surfbird (1). Hundreds of Marbled Godwit scanned failed to turn into Long-billed Curlews. On the walk back, we heard, but never saw, Horned Larks on top of the active trash heap and Bob spotted a single fly-by Whimbrel. We probably spent more time than we should have trying to spot the Horned Larks, but they were soooooo annoying close and vocal, it was hard to resist

2 pm - 3:30 pm Coyote Hills

The butterfly garden had a Western Woodpewee and American but not Lesser Goldfinches (a miss for the day). An adult Cooper's Hawk landed on a pole just beyond the gardens and there wasn't much feeder action after that! Rock Wren failed to appear on our way out to the ducks overlook, but Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon, and Common Moorhen were located amongst hundreds of eclipse Northern Pintails -- and seen by Bob & Bill but missed by Mary, rats! The arrival of a Lark Sparrow (once again, credit to Bob!) was a consolation prize.

3:50 - 4:15 - San Leandro Marina

Drove up to San Leandro and found the Pectoral Sandpiper which Bob had discovered while scouting the day before. The sandpiper was on the island breakwater, but the tide was so low at this point that the "island" was acessible to the humans, and no terns were hanging around.

4:30 - 5:00 - Alameda shore

Parked near the beach at Alameda South shore, where Bob spotted two Elegant Terns heading away -- which Bill & Mary could not pick up. Picked up Long-billed Curlew, but no Sora. Elected to cut this stop short in order to return to the redwoods, since our "likely" list had 8 redwood species left on it.


5:30 - 6:30 - Chabot observatory

Another highly successful stop brought morale back up after a mid-afternoon slump amongst the smaller animals in the expedition. In 10 minutes, we picked up Townsend's Warbler, Pygmy Nuthatch, Dark-eyed Junco, Steller's Jay, Brown Creeper, and Hairy Woodpecker in the first 10 feet of the trail. Only Mary saw the Band-tailed Pigeon flyover, so we can't count that on the list, but another 15 minutes' work brought us Red-breasted Nuthatch and Hutton's Vireo. A second stop for chaparral netted us a Wrentit. Now we were at 127 species and had our eyes on 130. We dashed back to the shore to try our luck.

7:00 - 7:45 pm - Cesar Chavez Park

We headed north along the road towards Cesar Chavez park near Berkeley Marina. There was one Clark's Grebe visible in the water -- but none of our hoped for comormants or scoters. We did find at least one Common Tern, but were unable to scare up the Barn Owl from the kite flying park. We had to close our day with 128 species. A more energetic team would surely have tried another stop for Pelagic Cormorant or maybe Sora back at Arrowhead, to boost the total, but we were cooked on both sides and had to call it a night.


Our day ends with 128 species for the team - a perfect square - and a feeling that we did "pretty well" for our first Alameda Big Day, but we want another shot!

POSTSCRIPT: A big day is not over until the list is discussed & retallied at length and the rules reviewed. ABA Big Day rules allow species to be included in the Grand Total even if they are not seen by all observers. We had five species in that category -- Elegant Tern, Black-headed Grosbeak, Common Moorhen, Violet-green Swallow and Band-tailed Pigeon -- and a review of the rules shows that these all count, not just the ones seen by a majority of ht team. We were allowed 6 species not seen by the whole team -- so all 5 of our "partials" count. This increases our total to 131 for the trip and that's the total we will be reporting to SFBBO.

Totals:

Bob Power: 126 + VIGSWA + ELETER + COMMOO = 129

Bill Walker: 126 + COMMOO = 127

Mary Wisnewski: 126 + VIGSWA + BATPIG + BKHGRO = 129

Grand Total: 131

Percentage: 52.610% of 249 species in Alameda County

Pelagic Trip #2

Black-footed Albatross
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Today was our second of three pelagic trips. This time we sailed out of Bodega Bay on glassy, glassy seas. This albatross photo was taken 20 miles out to sea, but as you can see, the background shows almost completely smooth water. Also, we learned that when you toss big stinky fish heads out in the ocean, the albatross are a lot more friendly.

More pictures here.

Acorn Woodpeckers!

Acorn Woodpeckers
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

This morning Ashok and I went down to Guadalupe Oak Grove Park in search of Acorn Woodpeckers with bright green acorns. The very first tree we stopped at yielded some excellent photos, particularly this one. They're very cool birds, both visually and behaviorally. The way they carefully organize their granaries is an impressive feat of engineering for a critter with no opposable thumbs, and their coloring makes them irresistable.

Pelagic Trip #1

Dolphins
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Today we went on a whale- and bird-watching trip with Doug and Gail Cheeseman of Cheesemans' Ecological Safaris. We won the tickets for this trip as a prize for raising money for Santa Clara Valley Audubon as part of their birding marathon in the spring. The seas were pretty quiet, and the mammals pretty much stole the show, especially the dolphins and porpoises.

More pictures available here.

Pigeon Guillemots at Pigeon Point

Pigeon Guillemot
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

This morning, Yamil, Ashok, and I went to Pigeon Point lighthouse in search of Pigeon Guillimots hanging out on the cliff. We had great looks at as many as five of these guys at a time. This was the first time I'd noticed the black nails on the ends of their orange feet, a detail I'll always look for now. What a wonderful bird. More pictures here.

Live from AT&T Park

Greetings from Section 321 of AT&T Park, home of your San Francisco Giants, where they have free WiFi and Garlic Fries. Such a deal. It's Stitch and Pitch night, so we're surrounded by knitters. Pretty cool.

Penguin Jazz Quartet at KKUP Jazz Marathon this Sunday

I am writing to invite all of you to come down to Santa Clara on
Sunday to hear me and the Penguin Jazz Quartet. We'll be performing as
part of a fundraiser for KKUP FM 91.5, a community-supported radio
station. Music starts at noon and runs until around 6pm, the Penguins
will be playing from 2-4pm.

Hope to see you there!

-------------------------

KKUP FM 91.5 Jazz Marathon
1241 Franklin Square
Santa Clara, CA 95050

Sunday, July 22, 2007
Noon - Leanne Weatherly Band
1:00 - Eric Benson Trio
2:00 - Penguin Jazz Quartet
3:00 - Jennifer Lee with the Penguin Jazz Quartet
4:00 - Octobop
5:00 - Kirk Tamura Trio

The station is in Franklin Mall by the Santa Clara Post Office.
Lafayette Street between Benton and Homestead. Park in the lot at the
corner of Benton and Lafayette

Northern Hawk Owl, Life Bird #500

Northern Hawk Owl, Life Bird #500
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

We got the 500th bird! Northern Hawk Owl was seen around 10pm in a very, very buggy field along the main road in Jasper National Park

499 and heading to mountains

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker feeding young
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Hey all, with 499 birds in hand, we're heading to the mountains. Jasper here we come.

Alberta Day Eight

LeConte's Sparrow
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

We got internet again, trip going well, 497 life birds. photos here

Six Down, Five to Go

White-winged Crossbill
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

After a stunning fourth day in Alberta, we have seen six new life birds. Only five more to go to get to 500. Dig this White-winged Crossbill, what an awesome look we had.

Alberta, Day Three

Butterflies at Elk Island
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Our last day in the parklands habitat, we drove north to Cold Lake today, where tomorrow we will begin looking for new lifebirds -- warblers. Wish us luck.

Alberta, Day Two

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Today we found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker nest and watched both parents taking food to the nest. Long day, and a good one. Read trip notes for more details, and take a look at trip photos on flickr.

Alberta, Day One

Edmonton Airport
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

We made it! Reporting live from Camrose, AB, after a day that ran from 0420 to 2320, I'm turning in. We and all our gear are safely in Alberta. Tomorrow we look for two life birds, Sprague's Pipit and Baird's Sparrow.

Father's Day

This dapper gent is my father, seen here in about 1960 with his beloved Bolex H16 movie camera. For those of you with DVD or hard disk camcorders, consider these specs -- he tells me it is spring-driven (no batteries!) and accepts 100 feet worth of film at a time, for a total of three minutes of shooting between changing reels. He sent me this photo earlier this summer when I reported to him someone still using a Bolex at my local Egret rookery. Dad has moved onto to more current technologies -- DSLR's and are the medium of choice for both of us now.

Anyway, the more I get into photography, the more I appreciate Dad's quiet mastery, his awareness of and keen eye for the world around us. I recall how we went for a walk around the neighborhood one Christmas a few years ago, shooting landscapes and Christmas decorations. I was struck by how effortlessly and simply he turned these everyday scenes into visually interesting compositions. I hope someday to have that knack.

So, on Father's Day 2007, I want all of you to know what a great Dad I have, a photographer, a teacher, a gentleman, an inspiration.

-Bill

High Sierra Workshop slideshow

Lower Sardine Lake
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Well, we're just back from Bob Power's High Sierra Workshop. We spent three and a half days birding Yuba Pass, Sierra Valley, Carmen Valley, and Plumas-Eureka State Park. I'll post more detailed notes soon, but meanwhile I thought you might like to see the full trip slideshow at flickr. Note that some of these images are not marked public, so you can only see them by using the guest pass link above. Or by getting your own flickr account

Sports shooting is fun, too!

Running fast
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Yesterday some friends and I saw the USA Men's National Soccer team defeat China's National team 4-1 at Spartan Stadium in San Jose. The intimate scale of the stadium combined with the fact that athletes are much larger than birds to allow me to make shots like these from the stands using only my Canon 20D and a svelte 70-200mm f/4L. I saw the guys on the sidelines with their 500mm f/4L's, I guess they are only shooting plays on the opposite of the field, or they really like shooting individual fingers and eyelids. Anyway, more photos here.

Bill with the Laura Johnson Group tonight

Hey all,

If you're in the mood to hear the blues, or play the blues, come to J. J.'s Blues in San Jose this Sunday (May 20th) around 5:30pm to hear me with the Laura Johnson Group. We'll be hosting the Blues Jam Session featuring us and whoever else shows up. Should be a fun time. Bring yer axe!

Mary and Bill to do charity birdathon, need your help

Bill and Mary
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Dear friends and family,

It's us, your friendly neighborhood bird nuts, writing to ask you to sponsor us in our 2007 birding marathon. On Saturday April 14, we'll be counting up the number of species we can see in one 24 hour period in our own home county, competing against other teams. Think of it as a subject-appropriate walk-a-thon to benefit nature education.

We'll be going all out for the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society (SCVAS) and their local education and outreach programs. If we do our work right, we will see over 125 species of birds in Santa Clara county in one mad 14 hour rush, starting with owls at 5 am and wrapping up with sparrows at dusk.

And why do this? For the glory, of course. For the stories, sure. But primarily we do it to convince you that we are serious about the SCVAS and their nature education programs.

Did you happen to hear about a book called Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv? This book describes how unlikely it is that kids today have the personal connection with nature that many of us may remember from our own childhoods. For kids in urbanized Santa Clara county, an Audubon nature program may be their only experience of a live hawk or a walk in the woods.

SCVAS develops curriculum and trains volunteers to reach out to kids through classroom programs and field trips to the great outdoors. SCVAS even provides free school buses so that kids in low-income communities can participate in field trips.

When I think about how many future voters and policy makers could grow up with no experience of nature, I worry for our local birds and for the future of environmental policy. Bringing kids in contact with nature is a wonderful way to connect them with lives and experiences outside themselves which may serve us all well in the long run.

So please help, if you are able. We are seeking pledges either "per species" seen on Saturday or as a simple dollar amount. We hope you will join us in supporting environmental education and outreach here in the beautiful bay area.

-Bill and Mary

Turkeys are so weird

Wild Turkey
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

This morning I went to Rancho San Antonio in search of owls, woodpeckers, and passerines, but I found these Wild Turkeys instead. They seemed to like the shadows, but by sitting patiently I got a few shots of them out in the morning sun, where their wild colors and crazy features were fully illuminated.

More photos at flickr.

Bill's photography workflow

Here's an overview of my current photography workflow. I wrote it up as part of my evaluation of iView, Aperture, and Lightroom. To really understand what I like and don't like about those three applications, you have to understand a bit about how I use iView right now.

(0) SHOOTING: I shoot a Canon 20D in raw mode, then insert each CF card into a Firewire CF reader attached to my MacBook Pro and do the following steps:

(1) DOWNLOADING: I use an AppleScript I wrote called "BillDownloaderPro" that automatically (a) opens a Mac OS X Saved Search for all the RAW files on the CF card, (b) creates a "photos-200N-NN-NN" folder in my laptop photo Backups folder. I drag the images from the Saved Search into the new folder and wait while they copy (this last step should also be automated, but I can't figure out how to select all the Saved Search items from AppleScript).

(2) TAGGING: I then launch Adobe Photoshop Bridge and use it to edit the contents of the newly created folder. I use a Bridge metadata template to set my copyright information on all the images. I set the Location, City, State, and Country fields in the IPTC. I set a basic keyword on each image to distinguish Landscapes from People from Birds.

(2A) QUICK DEVELOP: Sometimes while doing this initial tagging in Bridge I will open a few images in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and do a quick crop + white balance + tone edit, usually followed by opening a few images in Photoshop and running an Photoshop Action that prepares them as JPEG's for uploading to flickr.

(2B) QUICK DELETE: Sometimes while doing this initial tagging in Bridge I delete obviously bogus photos with problems like subject out of focus, exposure wildly wrong, flash didn't fire, wrong bird head angle.

(3) CATALOGING: I quit Bridge and import the folder of tagged raw files into my main iView MediaPro catalog. This main catalog contains information about all 30,000 images in my library. Once iView is finished making thumbnails for the new images, I start assigning ratings, deleting more bogus pictures, building collections of images I might use for printing wall calendars, and adding photos to birdWalker, my official blog and database for tracking our birding lifelist and my bird species photographed lifelist.

(4) LIBRARY MANAGEMENT: I store the primary copy of the library on three external Firewire harddisks, mostly laptop-sized for easy use on the train and while travelling. In addition to the primary catalog, I have two backup copies. One backup copy is stored on a 300GB external harddisk, a second backup copy on my 750GB RAID server at home. Hopefully within a few days of downloading a day's images I have copied them onto the appropriate primary library external disk and backup disks, at which point I prefix an "ok-" to the name of the copy of the folder on the laptop's internal disk, signifying that it can be deleted as necessary. Every several months I shift over several months of photos from the most recent primary library harddisk to the next most recent disk.

(5) MAINTENANCE/ONGOING: Over time I will revisit various images in the library. I use iView saved metadata searches to locate images with new keywords, bird images with no locations, and bird images with no SpeciesCommonName to make sure I've finished my cataloging. I revisit a day's shooting from several weeks ago and weed out further images. I rediscover good images, open them in Photoshop, and post them to flickr.

Hummingbird Quest

Allen's Hummingbird
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Hi, just a quick note to thank Gary Aspenall for his detailed directions to El Polin Loop, a location where he has previously photographed Allen's Hummingbird. This quiet natural spring in the middle of the Presidio turned out to be very productive, with the hummers posing on useful perches and drinking from the spring in close proximity. There's not a lto of light, but even so I highly recommend it as a place for practicing your hummingbird shot. Bring warm clothes for the first hour of daylight, and stay alert -- these little guys move fast!

Bill speaking at Milpitas Camera Club, Tues, February 13, 7:30pm

http://www.milpitascamera.com/
Community Room of the Milpitas Police Dept.
1275 North Milpitas Blvd & Minnis Circle, Milpitas, CA

In this talk I will equip photographers with the tips, tricks, and knowledge they need to begin photographing the wild birds of the San Francisco Bay area. I'll discuss different kinds of birds and where to find them at different times of the day and the year, how to approach birds in the field, how best to use the sun to light birds, and how knowledge of bird behavior can help you make better images. Anyone interested in birds or photography is welcome!

Note: The Club meeting begins at 7:00pm with roughly 30 minutes of club business, my presentation should begin around 7:30pm.