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The four days I spent in Kazakhstan, though they sped by while I was experiencing them, now seem to be nearly endless in the amount of material about which I have to blog. Though I have already written about the first waterhole we stopped at on our final day, the cool finch we saw [...]

It is time for yet another series of photos of a bird hanging out at a waterhole in Kazakhstan.  This time the Grey-necked Bunting (Emberiza buchanani) gets the honors, and, let me tell you, it deserves them.  Not only did this bird take two water baths in full view at relatively close range when the [...]

As we continued east from Almaty the air got drier and drier and the landscape got more and more desolate.  We passed a town that was almost completely abandoned in the midst of scrub vegetation, and the most common living things we saw were livestock, though how anyone raises animals in such an inhospitable place [...]

On our last day in Kazakhstan we birders traveled hundreds of kilometers to the east of Almaty in order to explore the desert environment there.  And while many birds were viewed, none were quite as fascinating to me as the two pink-winged finches we spotted, the Desert Finch and the Mongolian Finch.  This post, of [...]

The second part of my “excellent adventure” (Part One, is right here) involved coming down from the San Jacinto mountains to the valley floor some 5000′ below and the very different habitat - and consequently very different birds - of sagebrush and desert. Looking at my edition of Lane’s “A Birder’s Guide to southern California” [...]

Ah, the deep thinking that goes into making a successful Big Year when the rostering decisions determining your destinations are made by someone else. Suppose for a moment that your scheduling department had sent you to Los Angeles for the first time in 2008. Would you go flat-out for the common species first (which almost [...]

Cactus Wren Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus
USA and Mexico. Various dates 2004/05
 
The Cactus Wren is the largest North American wren, and is 18-23 cm (7-9 inches) long. Native to the south-western United States southwards (southern California, southern Nevada, Utah, Arizona - it’s Arizona’s State bird, and western Texas) to central Mexico it is as might be expected a [...]

“Guide to 101 Birding Sites - Phoenix”
Michael J. Rupp (Rupp Aerial Photography inc, 2002)
 
I found this slim, glossy, wonderfully organised book on my last visit to Phoenix - a city that looks to have been dropped down in the middle of a desert, is surrounded by mountains, and is within a short drive of [...]

Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix, Arizona.
21 November 2005

 
“Desert Botanical Gardens” - that’s a juxtapositioning of words that doesn’t quite sound right, does it?

Well, it may not sound right, but it exists and it’s a good place to look for birds if you’re in Phoenix and don’t have much spare time. Right next to Phoenix Zoo [...]