Acceptable for February


Today got as warm as 24°c, so I took the opportunity to return to Jordan Lake to see what could be seen. The spot where we were seeing the eagles last week was almost empty, save for a few gulls and cormorants, and I only fired off a handful of frames trying for something read more

Got a little bit

As I mentioned that morning, on Wednesday Mr Bugg and I had an outing to Jordan Lake, seeing what kind of activity was about as spring peeked in. Granted, it seems way too early for spring, and it is, but it didn’t feel that way, and the first signs were there. This post will all be about birds – with one exception, just for balance.

Things started slow. The rampant activity that I’d read more

Get back up again

That’s right, it’s the winter solstice today, or technically it was at 21:48 UTC, the very time when the sun sank as low as… no, that’s not exactly right, it was actually when the Earth tilted… no, that’s not really right either, it was when the south pole of the Earth was leaned as close to the sun as it can be, the very thing that makes winter in the read more

Eagles and lesser

I’m finally getting around to posting ‘part two’ of the Jordan Lake outing mentioned earlier, which is not the Jordan Lake outing from yesterday, which yielded only cruel juvenile woodpeckers. I had to split up the photos because there were too many, and so we get to the more specific topic of raptors.

The outing started out with a lot of promise, given this appearance within ten read more

Visibly different, part 35


Our opening image is crappy – I’ll admit that, but it’s kinda the point of these posts so don’t get too excited. It comes from 2018 but isn’t really the first image of a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in the wild that I’ve taken – it’s the first that I can lay hands on. But first, a little backstory.

This area of central NC had never been a decent read more

Sorting finds n+1

It’s happened before: when sorting through recent photos to see what is discarded and what is kept (and subsequently sorted into appropriate categories,) I will find a photo or three that I didn’t feature back around the time that I took them, but feel they deserve some recognition. This happens often enough, in fact, that I decided to make it a category, but since I read more

Mostly typical


I did a student outing to Jordan Lake three days back, now concentrating on more species than just the woodpeckers, but mostly seeing what I normally do, with a couple of exceptions. But first, an observation that I meant to post earlier and forgot. This sunset shot dates from the 14th – nothing exciting, just an illustration, because the next one is from the 18th.


In between, read more

Nature photographer’s lottery


Given the success of previous efforts and the fact that I had the opportunity to pursue such actions, I’ve been making more trips down to Jordan Lake to try and keep an eye on the red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) nest. It hasn’t been daily, nor for more than a couple hours at a time (mostly,) due to storms and heat and, you know, having a life. read more

The march of progress

And don’t say, “But it’s June!” – only I can get away with things like that.

Tuesday I went down to Jordan Lake to do a little casual photography after my target of choice proved hard to get into – you’ll see that here eventually. But for being the second choice, the lake worked out well enough.


In the extreme distance, an American crow (Corvus read more

Make-up quiz


This past Saturday, as I said, was World Migratory Bird Day for about 21% of the world, including this portion, but I regrettably did not get out to do anything appropriate. I decided to try and make up for this on Wednesday and went down to Jordan Lake, the closest location with the greatest variety of birds. It wasn’t enormously active that day, but I managed a few frames here and there.


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