BirdingGirl

These American Black Duck pics were taken last weekend we were down the Cape looking at potential wedding venues. Naturally I wanted to go birding while we were out there. One of the places we were looking at was in Provincetown, and we stayed overnight Friday since we had a morning appointment on Saturday. The hotel we were staying at is out on the end of the point, right on the beach. I was excited to see what the birding would be like in the morning, and just my luck- it was low tide! I got up around 7:00 and walked out to take pictures of the various ducks out on the sand bar. Here you can see the male feeding. American Black Ducks are dabbling ducks- they feed either by skimming the surface of the water, or by dabbling and reaching items in shallow water as shown in my pictures below. The American Black Duck diet includes aquatic insects, crustaceans, and small fish, which this duck may have been after: In this picture you can see the male preening. You can also see one of the ...

Steve and I celebrated Valentine's Day by going for a hike to Blue Hills on Sunday, and then for a in our backyard- Stiles & Hart Conservation Area- on Monday (President's Day). Trying to keep things cheap now that we're saving for a wedding! We had gorgeous weather- temperatures were mild enough to go out with just a fleece & vest- yet there was still snow on the ground, which made for some pretty photos. All the ones in this post are from Stiles & Hart. Notice Steve in the background throwing a snowball at me: We were out midday and didn't see anything too interesting, although these was this red-tailed hawk hovering over the marsh area. I was inclined to think it was a Cooper's Hawk, since my neighbor, the Bird Man of Bridgewater , has one regularly stalking his feeders. Upon closer inspection though, the red tail is distinct. See the hawk using its "rudder" in this picture? Not the brightest picture, but the red tail is distinct, even with...

On the advice of my neighbor John ( Bird Man of Bridgewater ) I recently joined the South Shore Bird Club . I attended their annual member's dinner last night, held in Norwell. It was a lot of fun to meet other South Shore birders, and it was certainly inspiring to watch the slide shows of the pros. There was a short presentation from Joan Walsh , Coordinator of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 2 , and I have to say her speech was motivating- I would love to participate and help them finish the breeding atlas. I'd definitely need to go out with a pro and have some coaching on how to look for breeding behavior, but the biggies (like if they're carrying sticks/nesting material, and obviously if you see them going back and forth to their nest) I think I've got down. Has anyone participated in a breeding atlas before?

This week's SEO tip for Birders (image optimization) is an important one since most bird bloggers like to post pictures of their sightings. Many of you have noticed that when you search on a bird species there are image results blended in with the rest of your search engine results. Example of bird species image results: SEO Tip for Birders : Optimize your images for bird species names. Bird Blogger Image Optimization Tips: • Always use the species name in your image file name - do this when you are reviewing and editing your digital images for your blog post. To rename a file simply right-click on it in the folder and choose "Rename." If you have multiple images of the same species use a - (hyphen) or a _ (underscore) to add a numeral to the end. For example: female+common+yellowthroat.bmp and female+common+yellowthroat_2.bmp If you are unsure of the exact species name then get as close as possible- "sparrow.jpg" Every little bit helps when it comes to SEO! •I...

In my last post I covered the titles of your blog posts and how you should include the most important words at the beginning of your titles. However, I didn't mention how to determine what the most important words should be. That brings us to my next SEO Tip for Birders- keyword research. SEO Tip for Birders : When doing keyword research identify words that a lot of people are searching for, but that you also have a chance of showing up on- it's a fine balance. There are many ways to generate ideas for your primary keyword phrase (the word/phrase you want to put at the beginning of your blog post title, and include in the body of your post), and your secondary keyword phrases (related terms that should be sprinkled throughout your blog post). Here are just a few ways to generate ideas for your targeted keyword phrases: 1. Your content : If you have a picture of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker then by all means choose it as your primary keyword phrase! In addition to the names of rar...

Some of you may already know that I work in Search Engine Marketing. I shared a few tips when I met up with the BwBTC (Birders who Blog, Tweet, Chirp) group this past summer, but I thought it might be nice to reach out to the rest of my readers, and make it a regular occurrence. I'll be sharing one SEO tip, customized for bird bloggers, each Friday. Some of you may be wondering, "What is SEO in the first place?" SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Other names for it are Natural Search or Organic Search. This is to differentiate it from Paid Search, also called PPC (pay per click) or SEM (search engine marketing). SEO is the practice of crafting your content (in our case our bird blog posts) so that it shows up at the top of search engine results. And most importantly, so that you are showing up on the keyword phrases (things like "peregrine falcon pictures" "binocular buying tips," etc.) that you want to be found on. The first tip I want to sh...

I was so happy to be home this past weekend so I could do some backyard birding, and count birds for Project Feederwatch. Actually, I recently connected with another Bridgewater birder, the " Bird Man of Bridgewater ," who also took pictures in the snow over the weekend. John is good at identifying the gender of birds in his pictures, something I blogged about last spring. I love this picture- I'm excited to have my very own picture of a Carolina Wren at a suet feeder. It's such a common picture for carolina wrens, and I'm glad this guy came around on Saturday to pose for me. This suet actually was a Christmas gift from my mom- it's a Berry blend and the birds love it. Carolina Wren and Downy Woodpecker: On a related note- not sure how to tell the difference between a Downy Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker ? I wrote a post about it nearly a year ago. Red-bellied Woodpecker: Winter Goldfinch: Dark-eyed Junco (I like how you can see the darker feathers with it...