Six plus hours birding.
This is what I have to show.
(Hashtag) Worst Bird Pic

On Sunday, January 25, Laura B. and I “Bird[ed] the Shores of Black Butte Lake” as part of the 16th Annual Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway. It was great fun, and I will include a full species list as well as some commentary below, but in this very moment, I would like to celebrate my talent for #WorstBirdPics.

#WorstBirdPic is a legitimate thing, as evidenced by this Buzzfeed (my favorite is #18): 23 of the Worst Photos of Birds.

So with that for a backdrop, I think you will find new appreciation for my opening photo; you can see the great blue heron, right? No?

Let me show you:

He’s right there! #WorstBirdPic

Okay, that one was kind of tough. Let’s try another. Do you see the bird:

Hint: it’s a western meadowlark! ….

….

No? I’ll show you:

Right there!

I know, I am clearly a prodigy, because I did not practice at all and produced these.

On a more serious note: Birding was terrific! I am so glad we participated in the festival. Below is a full list of the species we saw. Happy birding!

1. Western meadowlark
2. Rock wren
3. Double-crested cormorant
4. Gull sp.
5. Dark-eyed junco
6. Western grebe
7. Song sparrow
8. Goldfinch sp.
9. American kestrel
10. Loggerhead shrike
11. Killdeer
12. Black phoebe
13. American coot
14. Bufflehead
15. Common goldeneye
16. Ruddy duck
17. Acorn woodpecker
18. Northern flicker
19. Nuttall’s woodpecker
20. Mallard
21. Turkey vulture
22. Great egret
23. Great blue heron
24. Common merganser
25. Northern harrier
26. Red-tailed hawk
27. Western bluebird
28. Say’s phoebe
29. Kinglet
30. American robin
31. Glaucous-winged gull
32. California towhee
33. Spotted towhee
34. Golden-crowned sparrow
35. Western scrub-jay
36. Mourning dove
37. Yellow-billed magpie
38. White-crowned sparrow
39. Lewis’s woodpecker
40. White-tailed kite
41. Ring-necked pheasant
42. Red-shouldered hawk

Oh, and there was a delicious post-birding trip to the Sierra Nevada Taproom. Yum! Yum!