Two's Company

American Avocets (Recurvirostra americana); Salt Lake City, Utah

Three’s a crowd…I know nothing of the relationship of this dyad, but there’s no mistaking the synergy in their actions. At times their movement was completely synchronous. It was fun for me to spend some time with these two, one early morning last October, at close range from my blind at the water’s edge. I made many portraits of these two birds, individually and together. The pair together is a little more challenging to pull off, but when the spacing is right, some of that synergy comes through in the portrait.

Winter Birds of Red Butte Garden

Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia)

Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)

Last Sunday while at the Red Butte Garden annual holiday open house, I abandoned my booth for a couple of forays out into the wintery garden in hopes of seeing and photographing birds. To my surprise I saw nine different species of birds within about twenty minutes.

I'm guessing that the gardens create a rare concentration of winter food, based on my experience that bird sightings in the Salt Lake City foothills are infrequent this time of year. At least, I haven't seen that kind of variety of birds in one place at one time in any of the other locations I've gone looking this time of year.

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)