Observation – Life Intrigued

Couldn’t Eat Another Bite…by Brad Marks

Howdy everyone! As noted in my last post, I am officially home from our excursion through the West. There have been moments of pure happiness throughout my life, beating our competitors in the solid modeling innovation realm, passing my 9 hour multi-discipline second degree black belt certifications, crossing the 50 mile finish line for the first time and more recently, getting a good nights sleep in my own bed after two months of living in a tin can – that was aided by a late night run I was able to get in before that to jump start the humidity conditioning. Unfortunately, now having to harvest my yard, get the woods beat back into submission and deal with every critter in the neighborhood that decided to take advantage of my absence sigh. While I deal with the homestead entropy, Brad is going to step in to keep you entertained with another of their adventures from the absolute opposite direction from our recent travels. This also gives my brother Ron some extra time to work on a video I think you are going to like. I would like to thank you folks for kindly dropping in, set a spell, take your shoes off, you all come back now (link here).

Take it away Brad…

This is the second time I have tried to write this story. The first time, as brilliant as it was, seemed to disappear when my PC restarted itself during a mandatory update and set my story back to a nearly blank document that was several days old, even after being saved multiple times in the meantime. I checked the backups and they only had the version from the prior days before I did very much writing. I have auto-save turned on, but there was some sort of kerfuffle between my PC and my backup software. Not sure Windows 11 is being my friend at the moment. I’ll try to recreate the facts as best as I can remember them. Trust me, the first version was a brilliant rendition of our visit, truly Pulitzer worthy. Hehehe

Jan and I were on one of our annual trips to escape a week of February weather in Illinois. We like the Hilton Head area in South Carolina that time of year. Temperatures along the Atlantic Ocean are just enough warmer that we don’t need parkas, but not so warm we need short sleeves and sunscreen all the time. There seems to be a sweet spot right before the Spring Break throngs descend on the area and precisely when the hotels are deeply discounted. Yet not so early that state parks and activities aren’t available. We still see gators all over, but they haven’t really warmed up for summer levels of activity, thankfully. And I think I’ve finally figured out most of the roads we use and which traffic lane to use in the round-abouts. This is certainly not meant to be an advertisement, but if someone from the Hilton Head Bureau of tourism wants to sponsor future trips . . . just sayin’.

One of our favorite gems to visit is Wigeon Point Preserve, about 30 minutes away from Hilton Head towards Port Royal. I think Ted Jennings may have guided us to this location in the past, thanks Ted. It can be tricky to find while driving as there is precious little signage, and no separate right turn lane. The preserve is on a bend in the road between bridges spanning two large marshy areas. At the risk of making the preserve much more popular, we are usually the only people there.

Remembering that the park entrance sneaks up quickly at highway speeds, I slowed down and signaled to make the turn into the parking lot. This time, there was just one other car in the lot, but they were already headed to the trails. The couple was walking a new puppy who was rather excited to be in the middle of nature. We could hear the puppy proclaiming its joy as it romped along the trails. When we couldn’t hear the puppy, we could track its progress by the clouds of birds flying up from the trees wherever it went. At this point, we realized there would be no birds to photograph unless we waited several minutes for them to return to their perches. Or took a different path through the preserve, which is precisely what we did. If the crowds go left, go to the right, or vice versa. This strategy has served us well at various Disney parks.

Cedar Waxwing found by Brad Marks at Wigeon Point Preserve

Imagine you just heard an extremely high pitched twill, the calling card of today’s featured feathered friend. “Wax on” the jump button to learn more about this rather dapper find.

Not Violent, Violet

Been a few, my fault, upmost apologies. Free time has been at a premium as of late since we started are final drive east for home. In fact, by the time you are reading this we will either be officially back or minimally less than a state away. I’ll likely provide a more thorough recap of our foray through the west, but some key summary (at at least very close) statistics:

In total – 13 states visited
6 new states lit up on my eBird account
140+1 new birds for the year
54 new lifers
Current annual bird count – 440+4 (a new record)
Hit #125 on top US birder list for 2026
Over 6500 miles driven

This has been quite a trip, the longest we have been away from home and have to admit, looking forward to a good night’s sleep in a large, stationary bedroom. Then up bright and early to get my ass back into hard training. Although I rucked several mountains, wedged in a few 10 miles runs, did my cardio/core routine 6/7 days a week and mostly kept myself to 2 if not 1 meal a day, the body took the holiday to heart and needs a quick reminder it has a big race later in the year. Oh, and the Halloween Haunted Trail work is waaaay behind schedule.

…but you are here for birds and we have another Arizona specialty for you to kick off this new month.

Violet-Crowned Hummingbird found at Paton Center for Hummingbirds, Patagonia, AZ in March 2025

Pretty eh!?!, hit the jump to learn more about this beautiful creature.

That is One Good Looking Broad

Greetings once again from the road. By the time you read this we should be out of California and somewhere in Arizona. Picked up a number of birds during our first “official” trip to the state lighting up the 6th new state this trip on my eBird profile. Have to admit, Linda’s bribe of birding opportunities for agreeing to go out to Washington for the CPE Agility Nationals has materialized far better than ever imagined. I am getting a bit homesick now and looking forward to getting back…but not until we hit a few more of my favorite birding spots in Arizona. Fingers crossed the heat doesn’t chase the birds away.

This month is coming to a close and surprisingly it was spent entirely on the road. Big thanks to Brad for keeping the post quota pressure from adding additional stress to the trip. For this 6th and final post of the month, I am going to feature a member of a bird family that doesn’t get a lot of attention on this site. This has absolutely nothing to do with our fondness for this group of birds – we love them actually – but it comes with a great deal of work both during the encounter, inevitable work in the digital darkroom and then depending on a number of conditions (gender/lighting/breeding/etc), the potentially painful ID process.

Broad-Billed Hummingbird found at Patagonia, AZ in March 2025

To get the ball rolling, this post is going to focus on a Hummingbird that is pretty easy to identify if you can find the male. Hit the jump to learn more about this distinctive speedster.

PIE-lay-ted…by Brad Marks

Hi folks! We said farewell to Vegas and made our way west again. We had a list of things planned for our stay in the desert, but somehow that city has the ability to crumble up itineraries and set them on fire – this year that was almost literal as the day temps went to 109 and beyond. Ended up being a daily scramble thanks to some RV repairs, additional time spent hunting birds I thought would be easy checks and then a host of other things that gobbled up the time. I am sure we will get back there before too long – note to self, allow more time! On the bright side, birding has been outstanding – 109+1 annual birds since start of the trip, 43 of those being lifers. That puts me at 409+4 for the year – a personal record and we are still relatively early in the year. Oh, an that puts me at #211 in the US Top 100 Birders standings. The downside is the field days have been long and the gravitational force of the pillow strong – my apologies for the delay in responding to comments (I promise to remedy that as soon as I can) and now I will be out of pocket for a bit as we have a family event to take in. Fortunately, Brad is always at the ready to bring you another of their adventures and today’s feature is one of my favorite local feathered friends.

The pillow beckons, take it away Brad…

A couple of years ago, Jan and I were driving on our first trip to Hilton Head Island to escape a week of February winter in Illinois. We decided to drive to take all of our camera gear. Driving to Hilton Head takes 16+ hours from where we live, so we broke the trip into two days. The first night we stayed in Asheville, NC to could go to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner, the Tupelo Honey Café. We were not disappointed. On the second day, we planned to stop at Congaree National Park in South Carolina we found on a poster our daughter Allyson gave us when we retired. When we go to a new park, we can cross it off the poster, checklist style. The park poster contains some of the biggest National Parks (Yosemite and Yellowstone) and some of the lesser-known parks as well. That’s where we found ourselves.

When we finally arrived at Congaree, we were quickly rewarded with a bit of humor. There was a sign saying the park wide speed limit was 27 MPH. Not 25 MPH or 30 MPH, but 27 MPH! How cool is that! Arriving at the small parking lot, Merlin was telling us there were many birds in the trees, if only we could see them. I learned much later that Congaree National Park is one of the nation’s top spots to see very large firefly displays during late May and into June.

When I had finished assembling my camera (Jan was already off taking photos), a family was wandering by from their distant parking space. The grandfather in the group, seeing the big cameras, asked if I’d seen a specific bird pointing to the other end of the parking lot. Sometimes the local names and pronunciations of words can catch me off-guard. British English and American English often have different syllables emphasized. But when American English (Midwestern) and American English (Southern) collide, I sometimes have no idea where to start.

Here’s where I have to go to phonetic spelling because my ear was simply not tuned into Southern English so early in our trip. Absolutely no offense intended, things are pronounced differently all around our country. Pronunciations in the Northeast are sometimes the hardest because they remove certain letters and add them to the ends of other words. For example, the phrase “park the car” becomes “pahk the cah”. But the word “area” becomes “airy-er”. See what I mean?

Pileated Woodpecker for by Brad Marks in South Carolina

In any dialect or accent, that’s a BIG bird! Hit the jump to read more about the PIE!

An Arizona Specialty

Continued greetings from the road! We are in the second half of our western jaunt and I have to say it has been a bit tiring. The long drives, the continual up and downs from one mountain range to another and the temperature fluctuations … well that is probably the real story right now. After spending so much time at altitude and fairly pleasant temps (if not cold) weather conditions at elevation, we are now in the hot desert, more accurately, the torturous hot box. I have a history of heat “issues” and it takes the gradual temp changes back home to get the internal thermostats calibrated. This process has been short circuited to a 2 day cycle – one day 70sF followed by a steady 105-109F. Probably should have thought the plan through a bit more, but we are really in wait mode now until we make our sprint into California for a wedding and then point the RV east(ward). Early morning birding only at this point. Still managing to get some good checks and even broke through the 300 mark as I now sit at #268 in the top US birder rankings thanks to the now 92 birds added this trip (only 8 more to hit the Average Year goal of 400!!)

Thought I would introduce you to one of my favorite feathered friend finds from last year’s trip to Arizona while I try to get the internal body temperature down.

Arizona Woodpecker found at Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon, Arizona in March 2025

Your eyes are fine, that really is a brown Woodpecker. Hit the jump to read more about this very regionally limited bird!

Pot of Gold…by Brad Marks

My previous waning faith in humanity is definitely looking up here during our stop in Salt Lake City. Met some really nice people while up in the mountains birding (high Zane!) and the kind and gracious workers at the Mormon Temple were a breath of fresh air from the long days on the road. We have hiked a lot of mountains on this trip and I have to admit, mountain air (and trails) is/are fast becoming my lifeblood. Shout out to all the mountain athletes we’ve met on this trip – monster fitness, badly needed inspiration to keep pushing myself on the recovery to the ultra trail circuit. Been getting some really good bird checks lately, now sitting at 383+3 with the 10 new birds found the last couple of days here in Salt Lake City (at #318 in the top US birders list yay!) . Have I mentioned before how exhausting this trip is heheheh. We are moving base again tomorrow and need to try and get some sleep tonight. Brad is going to take the rudder and sail you across the wide pond to “Where women glow and men plunder” and the birds are a plenty. A fitting topic being we had a great time enjoying the birds of the world at Tracy Aviary today (link here). See ya’ again soon…

Take it away Brad…

Jan and I had spent the morning and most of an afternoon at the Taronga Zoo across the harbour from Sydney. Taronga is a very nice zoo, and there were animals we are unlikely to see anywhere else in the world. How often can you find a Sulfur-crested Cockatiel sitting on a tree branch out in the open handing out its opinion? Or a Southern Cassowary. Even behind electrified cables, these large birds are intimidating. In this case, the electrified cables are more to keep the angry bird inside than to keep less-than-cerebral visitors outside. I say it was angry because we observed a behaviour reserved for territorial disputes or threats. When a Cassowary is “upset” it makes one of the lowest sounds in the bird world, just on the lower edge of audible for most humans. It’s more of a feeling than a sound. It also looks like its whole body is vibrating, sort of like a subwoofer does in a home theatre setup. While not quite ostrich-sized, I think one would be happy to take out an unsuspecting tourist with a camera and not lose a bit of sleep over it.

Leaving Taronga, Jan and I took the 20-minute harbour ferry ride back to Sydney. The ferry dropped us on the next pier over from the Sydney Opera House; one of our life goals to see in person. After another dozen or so photos of the Opera House (who am I kidding, it was probably a hundred more, in addition to the hundreds Jan and I took the prior day), we decided to try to find P. Sherman at 42 Wallaby Way to return his scuba mask. Fans of Finding Nemo will understand the reference. It was, after all, our last full day in Australia and Jan and I wanted to make the most of it. We took a circuitous route back to the hotel, through the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Still on a high from encountering a Laughing Kookaburra in a gum tree (see here) near the Royal Botanical Gardens entrance, Jan and I wandered further through the gardens. Nearing the garden exit, there seemed to be a kerfuffle in a flowering tree next to the path.

This new bird is snacking on nectar from a flower on a Ceibo Tree (Erythrina crista-gall) or Cockspur Coral Tree, native to South America but thriving as part of the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Rainbow Lorikeet found by Brad and Jan at Royal Botanical Gardens

Learn more about this colorful feathered friend after the jump!

No Smile, Get Wood

Well, we officially passed the halfway point of our northwest excursion, otherwise known as the point my butt longs for multi-ply toilet paper (RV humor). We are now on our way inland from the pacific tip of Washington as we make our way south. I originally wrote up an intro that covered some of the not-so-great aspects of the trip so far. Most of the way into it decided you deserved better than that screed, scrapped it all and will simply summarize as somehow we have lost a great deal of society decorum. The cause is probably a thesis in itself, but my gut says the faux pandemic is at the core or maybe political polarization – I’ll leave it for historical study. Regardless, it has been glaring to the point Linda’s new favorite shirt is one she got at a fish hatchery in Cascade Locks, OR that reads “I Hike Because People Suck”. Laughed out loud when she saw it..had to have it ha. Let’s flip the script and brighten up the post. Birding has been really good and after today’s +1 in the mountains of Idaho I’m now sitting at 373+3. The 400 goal for this year is definitely in reach..maybe even before we make it back home!

With the rewrite, I opted to switch to a featured feathered friend that ALWAYS bring a smile whenever we find it in the field

Wood Ducks found at John Ward Memorial Park in Amarillo TX in March 2025

Smiles, smiles and even more smiles after the jump!

Greater Sand-plover…by Brad Marks

Greetings from Oregon…wait, if I back up and take a running jump that might be Washington…regardless, a long way away from home. It is unlikely I will ever get “bored” of birding, but one word that does come to mind at the moment is “exhaustion”. It has been one busy day after another filled with major excitement, some disappointments and a whole lot of stress trying to hunt down targets and get something in the tin during often very brief glimpses. Oh, and an encounter with a Point Break wannabee who tried to throw me off “their beach” – more on that story in a future post. For those keeping score at home, the Average Year (link here) count now sits at 369+3 provisionals. In detail since leaving on our trip: +69 new annual checks including +28 lifers. A quick count of the misses so far is 5 – some I will hopefully be able to pick up as we get deeper in the trip, others are regionally specific and lost until we make our next trip to the northwest sigh. Still plenty of opportunities left to add to these numbers (tomorrow going for 3 more lifers!). Most surprising is I’ve moved up to #379 on this year’s top US birders list yay! Time to recharge the batteries while Brad takes the lead and brings you another of their adventures from Down Under. See you again soon!

Take it away Brad…

During one of our “free” mornings in Cairns (pronounced “cans”), Australia, Jan and I were happily photographing birds from the boardwalk along edge of the Coral Sea. Though only mid-morning, temps were already nearing 30C (85F). Humidity was as high as it can go: 100%. The tide was on its way out leaving behind a vast tidal flat of mud and small birds. There were little brown things with spindly legs moving all over the mud. Some were fiddler crabs, some had feathers.

As is usually the case with such a broad area for photographing, Jan heads one direction, and I head another. Still within sight of each other, but able to cover a much larger area, we could photograph twice as many birds. Or at least the same birds from different angles.

I’ve mentioned before that carrying a large camera and lens combo attracts all sorts of attention. I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on birds in America, let alone Australia; I’m hoping to be upgraded to novice soon on two continents (see note at the end). This morning, my bird ID app certainly wasn’t offering much help with audio. Plus, the shore birds weren’t close enough to hear their calls over the surf. For today’s bird ID, I relied on a sign posted by the water’s edge (I usually take a photo of any sign picturing local birds) and a group of self-proclaimed local “twitchers” wandering through, asking me, “Do you like our Plovers”? I, of course, answered “Yes, I do.”

Greater Sand Plover found by Brad Marks in Australia

If you answered “Yes” to the Plover question, go ahead and hit that jump!

13 Down, 2 to Go

Greetings once again from the road. I have to say, birding wise things are going quite well on our trip to the northwest. 54 species have been added to my annual count and with the 3 lifers found today that number includes a total of 13 first timers. Not too shabby and we are not even a third of the way through the excursion. We are officially at the site of the Canine Performance Events Agility Nationals (outside Seattle/Tacoma) and time for Ruger and Linda to take to the ring. The birding will take a back seat for a few days while attention shifts to the obstacle course. Once that is over we’ll be focused back on our feathered friends…speaking of which, let’s get you to today’s feature.

Hepatic Tanager found at Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon, AZ - March 2024

Continuing with the theme, hit the jump to read more about this southwestern specialty.

Zebra-Head

Greetings from the road! It has been a week out now and it has been a mixed bag of good and bad – fortunately, more of the former. The weather has started out rough, but the last couple of days has been fantastic. We brought the wrong tripod head for Linda’s planned waterfall pictures, but we were able to remedy that today with a drive into Portland, OR. Grateful they were open on a Sunday of a holiday weekend and even more surprising had the exact head we needed. Just for the record, we really have no interest in going back to that city and I’ll leave that there. So far, challenges encountered, challenges surmounted. Best of all, the birding has lived up to expectations. Even though I haven’t moved into full birding mode I’ve been able to add 42 birds to my count with 8 lifers putting me at 342+3 for the year – and #556 in the US yay! 60 more birds to beat last year’s record, I think I can do it.

Unfortunately, I am not doing very well with staying on top of the posts for this month and technically behind – big thanks to Brad for keeping me above water. Kicking back into things with another entry in the “May I have another chance” series.

Bridled Titmouse found at Patagonia State Park, Patagonia, AZ in March 2024

Prepare yourself to be underwhelmed and hit the jump to learn about this Zebra bird.

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