Amateur Birder in the Making

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you are up earlier and out later for sunrises and sunsets. Granted this has made for some great photographic opportunities for me. You all know how much I enjoy taking photos.

I have made a large print of this photo, framed it, and put it up on my wall.

Caught just moments after the first photo, I found this one to be quite interesting, as well.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you take photos of these bird silhouettes against the morning and evening sky and immediately take note of what bird you are seeing.

Duck

Prairie chicken

Northern harrier (which can almost look like a silhouetted short-eared owl at first)

Just a beautiful calm sunrise alone.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you spend some time sitting in a duck blind with a few layers at dusk and dawn.

Yet, at times like this you also get some fun looks at the moon in the sky.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you've spent hours out with people using binoculars and spotting scopes.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you smile each time you notice the bird off in the distance and happen to snag a photo.

                   
                        red-tailed hawk

                                                                         Bald eagle

Mallard ducks

White-fronted geese

Snow geese

Blue-winged teal

Mostly mallards that look like a swarm of bats in the sky

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you are pretty excited to spend some time birding with these guys who have been birding for years. Man have I learned a lot from Bill, Mark, and Ed. We've also had quite a few laughs and smiles along the way.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you take a little time in the afternoon to go sit at one of your favorite spots. You brought your book to only find you were distracted by flaps overhead.

Gull

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you spent a whole day driving around in a Gator with tools pulling poles out of the ground, cleaning out bird boxes, moving some, and pounding them back into the ground in better locations.

Did that all for the beautiful bluebirds. Was still a bit chilly in the wind that day, but those bluebirds sure are fun to see.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur birder when you are excited about seeing more than one northern harrier at a time. We even saw a merlin one morning, which was new.

Northern harriers

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur border when you voluntarily woke up at 4:45am on a Sunday to go see the prairie chickens again. Beautiful and cool morning.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur border when you try to capture photographs of a Western meadowlark from the front and back. Mighty pretty on that front side; just check out that yellow while he sings.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur border when you watch this guy climb into a bin looking for owls to crawl back out with a Cooper's hawk that has seen better days.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur border when you appreciate the varying light at different times of day, as captured with a red-winged blackbird below.

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur border when you thoroughly enjoy watching these winged creatures land on the water.

Canada goose 

Mallard duck

Green-winged teal

You know you are on your way to becoming an amateur border when your mom can see how much fun you're having. My mom stayed with me in Ponca for 5 days, and I took her out birding on our tours and for fun more than once.

I'm sure I will be enjoying more birding adventures in the future. Hope you all have a great day!