Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

There's a fountain in the garden of our friends' house in Silicon Valley, and we've taken to sitting outside under the canopy where we can work and listen to the trickle of water. It's refreshing there in the shade, in the slight breeze of a California afternoon.

We're not the only critters that like that fountain, and it's regularly visited by all manner of birds that my European ornithological skills regularly misidentify (like the grey bird with a rose-red head that isn't a linnet but instead is the remarkably prosaic house finch). However one bird that's easy to spot is the tiny nectar-fueled speed-freak that is the hummingbird - and they too treat the fountain as a filling station.

This afternoon one came hovering by, whirring like a clockwork steampunk drone, and made its way to the fountain, glistening green in the summer sun, darting first this way, then that, before settling to drink its fill...

My camera (as always) was ready, and I managed to capture a sequence of the bird first approaching and then landing on the fountain.







Such cuteness.

(But inside it's an angry Aztec warrior)

Willow Glen, California
June 2011

In more Californian ornithologicalness, here's a quick shot of a hummingbird feeding in Laguna Beach, in all its iridescent beauty. A couple were flitting from flower to flower in the hotel gardens, so I skipped away from lunch to take a few photos.

Those tiny wings, they beat so fast. Even my camera can't capture them...



Laguna Beach, California
May 2011

Driving north out of LA can get tedious. Take 101 and blast through the interminable suburbs to Ventura, or 5 up and over the Tejons and onto the eternal flatness of the Central Valley? So why not do something different instead?

That's why we found the Mount Pinos route, up 5 to Frazier Mlountain Park and then climbing to 6000" and along a north western ridge of the mountains, before dropping down the curving slopes to the Cuyama Valley. That last part of the drive is the most scenic, as you roll along the top of the ridge, following its sinuous curves from peak to peak, and rock to rock.

We were driving that route a week or so ago when we saw a white pickup and a ranger carrying what looked like a small TV antenna. Wondering what she was doing we pulled into a layby with a magnificent view over the slopes and hills to the north. Then we saw what she was tracking: first a handful of dots in the sky, and the bigger and bigger, the wide wings catching the afternoon updrafts from the slopes.

California condors, five of them.



As one swooped closer we could see its tracking beacon, a whip antenna protruding from one enormous wing.



They spiraled over us, higher and higher.



And then they were gone, off into the mountains on their evening patrol.



What a wonderful sight, some of the rarest large raptors in the world.

Tejon Mountains, California
May 2011

So we're in the US again, following the conference trail from Orlando to San Francisco to Atlanta to San Mateo to Laguna Beach to Santa Clara.

Between the end of BlackBerry World in Orlando and the start of Google IO in San Francisco we had a free weekend, so we rented a car, and headed off west, to a couple of favourite places on the Gulf Coast keys, Pass-a-Grille and Anna Maria Island, stopping off at Fort deSoto in between. As always the islands were ideal places for photography, especially of birds and sunsets.

Here's one I'm especially happy with, taken at on the beach at Fort deSoto, of a snowy egret in flight. Such a beautiful bird.



Oh, and have a bonus shot of my favourite sea bird, the black skimmer, err, skimming the sand.



Fort deSoto, Florida
May 2011

...and that's what seems to be happening back home on Jersey.

A breeding programme has begun at Jersey's zoo in order to re-introduce the Red-billed Chough to the island. The bird, Britain's rarest crow, has been absent from Jersey for more than 100 years.

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has a colony of the birds which it aims to reintroduce to the coastline.

Read more.

I'm looking forward to photographing them...

There's a cage at the San Diego Wild Animal Park where you can take sugar water to a group of brightly coloured lorikeets.

It's a strange place full of screaming kids traumatising themselves as tiny parrots climb over their bodies on sharp little talons, hunting the little plastic pots of nectar. Meanwhile parents wave futile arms, trying to flap away the unflappable.

Then there are the photographers, zooming in on each brightly coloured feather, awed by the blues and yellows and reds and green, admiring the detail in the pinpoint black eyes and the curve of the orange beak.

The birds pose for them, hoping for a sugary reward.



"Who's a pretty boy then?"

Escondido, California
May 2009

There are an awful lot of recent arrivals on the Big Island.

Not people - instead the Hawaiian islands are a text book case on the downside of animal introductions. Everywhere you go you see them, the cardinals, the mynah birds, the mongoose. And every where you go you don't see them, the nene, the mamo.

There are still some endemic species. High in the rainforest on Kilauea you'll see 'apapane flitting about, small red birds with black wings. They're honeycreepers, feeding on nectar from the trees around the craters. If you're lucky you'll get to see the rarer 'i'iwi with its scarlet beak.

Here's an 'apapane feeding on the slopes of the Kilauea Iki crater.



Kilauea, Hawaii
June 2009

It was dusk when we got to the end of the Volcanoes National Park's Crater Road. In the distance we could see the steam rising from lava flows, and below us the waves crashed on the new cliffs that mark the end of the island.

We stood there for a while, in some of the freshest air on the planet.

Suddenly there was a flicker of wings, and a small flock of dark grey birds flew out of the south, arrowing out of the sky.

They were Black Noddies, a Pacific ocean tern.





Kilauea, Hawaii
June 2009

Our street's summer visitors are back as usual, screaming their way across the summer sky. Up on the roof to catch a summer sunset, I caught one as it zipped past my lens.

Putney, London
July 2008

Laughing Gull making a close flypast.

Honeymoon Island, Florida
June 2008