Birds - Once Upon A Frittata

If you don’t know much about birds, maybe it’s time to spread your wings?

A few words on birds…

I was once a person who knew there were birds. I’d seen a few around. Then one day a friend taught me to watch the birds, and to notice how many different kinds you might see just in your own backyard.

So I watched. And became amazed.

And then I started traveling the world to meet the birds in other backyards.

Enjoy my gallery of birds photos, each with a caption of who he/she is and where the photo was taken. All of the images are my own.

Bard Owl, St. Augustine, Florida, May 2024

Coppery Headed Emerald — Bard Owl, St. Augustine, Florida, May 2024

Brown-Throated Parrot, Santa Barbara de Pinto, Colombia, Sept 2025

American Robin, Katy Trail, Dallas, May 2025

Bald Eagle with lunch, Magee Marcsh, Ohio, May 2025

The Camera(s)

I’m not a professional photographer. Yet.

My first camera was a Canon PowerShot SX50 HS. I bought it because the internet said it was the best “point and shoot” for birding. It had 50x optical zoom which means you can zoom to get a bird that is very, very far away. If you can see it at all with your naked eye, you can zoom to it.

After many years of use and travel, the viewfinder finally broke – it has an LCD screen and is still usable, but for birding I prefer the old-fashioned viewfinder. So I did some homework and tried a few models. I upgraded to the Nikon Coolpix P900 because it has all the same things I liked on the Canon, but 83x zoom.

Yes, that ‘s right. 83x zoom. Game on.

It also had WiFi which was a game changer when traveling. No plugs for transferring photos ever again, and you can upload throughout a trip so that if you drop or lose Mr. Camera mid-vacation, you don’t lose your photos. Incredible peace of mind!

Making the Leap to DSLR

I started going to the Biggest Week in American Birding (BWIAB) in 2022 and met several bird photographers there who have since become good friends. I started feeling inferior because I didn’t have one of those long lenses that the other birders had. In 2024, I convinced one of my photography friends to help me get started with a DSLR. I was intimidated, but it took one photo and I was sold. I am currently using the Nikon D500, purported to be the best birding camera on the market.

A Few Seconds of Fame

I cruised the Magdalena River with AMA Waterways in September of 2025 and they did a Facebook feature on me to encourage other birders to take the cruise. They used my photos!