YOUNG at heart

For birdwatchers a “lifer” is any bird you see for the first time. The longer you’ve been a birder the harder it is to get lifers. I’ve been birding for 10 years now, but I still have a very good chance to get more lifers.

My first one for this year is a Golden Eagle.

Not the greatest photo, but my mantra is always “Get a shot, then try to get a better one.”

I’m now working on updating my bird list photos. As I went through it I found there were lots of birds that I got photos of when I first started out, but that I know I have better photos of now. Here’s an example – the Brown Thrasher was the bird that started me out:

The first one was taken in 2011 and the second one was taken in 2020.

So, better camera, more knowledge and experience, and good luck leads to a better photo. That’s one thing I love about this hobby. Even if the bird you see isn’t a lifer, you might be able to get a better photo of it this time!

I’ve decided to self-publish a series of children’s stories that I wrote a few years ago. I call them Victims of Vowel Play, because each one is a retelling of a common folk tale but written without using one of the vowels. For instance, the first one is based on Snow White and doesn’t use the letter A.

These were so much fun to write! And I’m having fun making a few illustrations for them using clipart images on Canva. My name conveniently has every vowel in it, which I didn’t realize until I started making the covers. I have three of the six done so far.

They are only available as Kindle eBooks for now – and only $0.99 each! I haven’t decided if I’ll do anything more than that with them. But for now, I’m just working on getting the other three done.