Category: birds

From my archives: Birds in Montserrat

    I’m starting to go through my archives looking for bird photographs that I took casually before I became a more enthusiastic bird photographer. These are from my visit to the Caribbean island of Montserrat where I went in March 2007 to shoot the volcano.

Summer birding photos in Kitimat

A selection of some of my bird photographs so far for the summer of 2023 On August 24, there was a three hour power failure in Kitimat. With not much else to do and because it was a sunny and warm afternoon I sat out on my back deck. One of the steller’s jays that […]

A rare winter bird in Kitimat, Townsend’s solitaire (plus a couple of eagles)

A visitor to my backyard mountain ash tree the past couple of days (February 9 and 10, 2023) a Townsend’s Solitaire (myadestes townsendi).  It is a thrush, usually found further inland along the Pacific Northwest but rare on the coast, especially in winter. a UPDATE:  February 13, 2023.  The Townsend’s solitaire back on Monday afternoon. […]

Saturday morning on the Thames at Brentford

Saturday morning, September 9, 2022 was my last day in London. With an afternoon flight,  that morning, I walked down to the Thames from my hotel, enjoyed the late summer sun and photographed the birds gathered along the low tide shoreline. There were boaters and scullers on the water and people walking along the shore […]

Cormorants on the red Triassic cliffs of Devon

Just to the east of Exmouth, Devon, you find the “Triassic Coast,” the western most part of Britain’s famous UNESCO World Heritage “Jurassic Coast.”  Wikipedia says of Orcombe Point “At the base are cross-bedded sandstones. Towards the top, the rock types are those deposited by quieter, slower-flowing waters (i.e. siltstones and mudstones). The sediments are markedly […]

The Bowling Green Nature Reserve, Topsham

During my trip to Topsham, Devon, I visited  the Bowling Green Marsh Nature Reserve. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Bowling Green Nature Reserve is on the junction of the River Exe and the River Clyst, close Topsham. The Lookout Hide viewing platform is described as “an ideal spot to watch birds up […]

Finding my roots in Topsham, Devon

In August 2022, I finally (after Covid travel delays) was able to explore my ancestral home of Topsham, in Devon. (These images were taken over several days,  back posted to August 30, 2022 to keep the blog in chronological order), For two centuries, sailors from the Pennell family on my father’s side lived, worked and […]