Getting ready for Hawaii

I haven't had much time to post lately since all of my free time lately has been devoted to getting ready for Hawaii (we leave the 25th). However, now that all of the flights and rental cars are booked I can start to relax a little. I'd like to do some research in the next couple of days on the types of birds I can expect to see so I can spot them while we're out there. We're traveling to the Big Island for my friend's wedding that will take place in Volcanoes National Park. After the wedding my boyfriend and I are going to Kauai for the last two days of our trip. We'll be in Hawaii for 10 days total- can't wait!!

My friend and her fiancé live on the North Shore of Oahu and he has been really helpful in sharing his birding knowledge with me. He gave me a list of birds I can expect to see and I've already started referencing my Audubon book to see what they look like and on what islands they are found.

Comments

Well, Here We Are — Back to Birding Girl After 11 Years

Well, here we are—after an epic 11-year hiatus, I’m sitting back at my Adirondack chair, overlooking the picturesque cranberry bogs we live on now. I've swapped my super strong coffee for a hoppy, locally-brewed IPA to celebrate the end of the work day, and starting work again on my personal project- BirdingGirl. Honestly, it feels a little surreal. If you’re popping in and thinking, “Wait, she’s posting again?”—yep, it’s me! The binoculars are still close by, the dog is snoozing nearby, and yes, the birds have kept me company all along. Life Lately: Birding (Mostly) at Home Let’s get this out of the way—I never stopped birding. Not for a minute! Sure, life looks a bit different now. Marriage and kids will do that to you, right? These days, “getting out in the field” means looking up at the trees lining the trails leading to the cranberry bogs I walk my dog on, listening for great-horned owls and wood thrushes, or watching a flash of yellow as the warblers return each spring. I ...

Difference Between Grackles and Starlings

I saw a sad sight today during my lunchtime jog—a dead grackle. Or was it a starling? I'll get to that in a minute. I was making my way down to the trail along the Charles River when I saw what I thought was an injured bird in the middle of the road. It was just sitting there and I figured it was just stunned or maybe had an injured wing. The bird probably didn't have much of a chance, but the least I could move it out of the road. As I got closer to the bird I saw it had its mouth open and then I realized the gruesome truth—it was dead and was frozen in that position. I just got shivers thinking about it. The poor thing. Anyway, so it got me to thinking 'What is the difference between grackles and starlings?' I use the two interchangeably and haven't really made an effort to sort it out. Until now. I like to use All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online resource. The site is comprehensive and easy to use. (I also really like the 'Cool ...

Large-billed Crow pictures from Japan

These large-billed crow pictures come courtesy of my work colleague Phil who lives in Japan. He told me he had some great Japanese crow pictures, and the first thing I noticed about the bird was the large bill. I started doing some research to come up with the correct crow name. First I thought it was a carrion crow since those are a common type of Japanese crow, but the bill wasn't big enough. Then I found pictures of the large-billed crow and those were a match! Duh- "large bill"- it couldn't have been any simpler. These crows are also called jungle crows, but most of the birding sites call them large-billed crows. Phil said they can get really big, which I believe since American crows are huge sometimes. I have vivid memories of standing my in my parents Cape Cod kitchen doing dishes and getting spooked by something huge in my periphery on the deck. All it ever was was a giant crow, but really they can be scary when they get so big! Here are some interesting thing...

BirdingGirl

Search This Blog