Photographing Birds in Flight

A few years back, I received a handsome tripod as a gift.  I’ve tried repeatedly to use it, but I always seem to point it in the wrong direction.  Bottom line, I don’t want to carry it when I’m out walking.  As it is, I look like a newbie journalist, my many-pocketed vest bulging with stuff I can never find and a camera and pair of binoculars criss-crossed like bullet holsters over the top.

A Welcome Sound

This past summer, the Hudson Valley was dry and hot.  Ponds disappeared, turning beautiful vistas into tableaux of mud.  Turtles abandoned a log beached in waterless ooze.  Fewer insects meant fewer birds and dragonflies.  A catastrophe, albeit of a minor sort when thought of against the world at large.