Camera Blues

Bad news, folks. I dropped my camera two weeks ago and it broke. Ouch. Worst time and place to lose photo-taking abilities. I can still take photos but you can see the side of the lens in most of them and the image stabilization function is, well, non-functioning the majority of the time. This unfortunate technology set-back compounded with the "I've-been-in-the-field-ALL-day" delirium makes blogging in a coherent way nearly impossible. Unless you are Luke, whose blog Boom Chachalaca is kept up and pretty awesome (he has a fancy camera and a good eye). Also, check out the Los Farallones blog.

I wish blogging were my thing right now, but it is not. This is not the end of it all, nowhere near, but I do expect to post less frequently until I get motivated to get into a regular groove.

Here are some pre-camera-bounce photos and a few post-camera-bounce to demonstrate what my current photographing abilities are.

Adult male Anna's Hummingbird in the mist-net. We caught four on my birthday!

Another male Anna's Hummingbird...less iridescent feathers!

Lifer Grasshopper Sparrow.

A mildly socked-in day.

Horned Puffin! A life bird for all that saw it.

Arboreal Salamander in a crack.

Rusty Blackbird dancing manakin style.

Harbor Seal being so damn cute.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Banding the Saw-whet Owl, broken camera.

A Barn Owl! I've held many dead Barn Owls, but never a live one until it got caught in our net. We banded it. Amazing.

My very sad camera attempting to photograph the Barn Owl in the tree. Artsy squiggles.