Boids

Several years ago my mom gave me a framed print of a group of native americans on horseback at a stream with the reflection of an eagle in the water. It was titled 'The Good Omen' and was one of the many gifts from mom that I thought I'd never do anything with. But Kyle was a big fan of it and I hadn't printed off too many of my own pictures at the time so it found its place on a wall near the kitchen. For almost six years now its been in plain sight but still easily forgotten. The message behind the painting, though, has been getting much harder to ignore.

Every road trip I've taken over the past few years my eyes have been drawn to the sky to find that solitary bird gliding along the same path as mine. While our destinations may be different, for at least a moment, our journey is the same. Seeing a bird perched on a lonely branch over the highway is both exciting, in that I'm sharing space with such a magnificent creature, and calming, as though it were watching over me in my travels. Although if I were a small rodent or reptile I'd probably feel different.

While I'd been able to separate my joy of photography and the joy of being in the company of great birds of prey, spotting a great horned owl out at Duck Days a few weeks ago has pushed me down the path of becoming a birder.


I'd really wanted to avoid this as I've found most birders, especially here in Davis, to be pretentious and annoying. But spotting a pair of Swainson's hawks while on my way back from an assignment in Clarksburg a few days later helped pushed me closer to birderdom.


Another Swainson's hawk on the way out to Winters sealed my fate.


Its gotten so bad that last week, instead of just stopping for birds between assignments, I went out birding on purpose. A bike ride thru the UC Davis arboretum found a double crested cormorant,

a nutall's woodpecker

and then a juvenile red shoulder hawk


Had it not been so windy the past 2 days I probably would've been out on the bike wrought with bird fever. Hopefully this disease will taper off soon because I'm already contemplating about what's more important, keeping my audi or buying a new super telephoto lens.