Thursday, February 18, 2010

Birders As Art II



This is my colleague Dan.  He is holding a Tufted Flycatcher and giving the bird.  I feel it is important to know he is giving, you, the viewer the bird.....not the bird the bird.  Follow?  Frankly, this is an incredible photo, and I wish I could give some credit to the photographer but I don't know who it is.

Note than Dan is not overburdened with ridiculous-looking field gear and almost resembles a normal human being.  He believes, like some other deluded individuals,  that birding is not inherently nerdy, but we all know that he is Wrong.  Dan also uses Zeiss binoculars, a quality selection popular with the old school of birders.

Dan and I have a history with Tufted Flycatchers....we searched for one in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeast Arizona a few years ago and I was lucky enough to find the bird and get to spend some quality time with it.  Dan, like most everyone else who was there, was not.  But now he is living and working at the El Cielo Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, and is probably up to his knees in them.  Although I've only seen one, I highly recommend finding one.  It's quite invigorating.

2 comments:

  1. Okay, I'll try and find a Tufted Flycatcher here in Germany.
    And look: he has orange stripes on his Zeiss binoculars, so he's either a big Calvin & Hobbes fan or showing at least a small hint of nerdness.

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  2. I hadn't noticed those...assuming he isnt a diehard Bill Watterson fan then it can only be taken as a sign that he wants to break out of his self-imposed nerd closet.

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