I decided it was about time I did some updating on my website.

First up, My Bird List. I removed the Birds by Location thumbnails, and replaced them with thumbnails of all the birds. In doing so, I discovered a few things:

• I totally missed a bird that I saw in Costa Rica – the Crimson-collared Tanager – so I added it to my list.
• I don’t have a Common Raven on my list! I know I have Raven photos, I just have to find them.
• Some of the photos I had of the more common birds – that would have been some of the first photos I posted – weren’t very good. And I have better ones, I just haven’t updated them. Here’s a couple of examples, with the original photo on the left and its replacement on the right:

So I’m glad I put up the thumbnails, because it alerted me to more updates I need to make. But that’s a winter project…

Because a list of bird names is only interesting to bird nerds like myself, I’ve revised my Bird List on here to include thumbnails of the birds I’ve photographed categorized by where I first saw them. The categories are Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico and USA. Canada and USA are broken down into provinces (BC, Newfoundland, Ontario, and Saskatchewan) and states (just Oregon so far).

So what did I discover doing this? Well, my photographs have come along way from when I first started this. But like I always say – a bad photo is better than no photo. I also realized that I need to update my photos. I know I have better shots of many of these birds now, but will have to go through my pics and find them. Sounds like a good winter project to me.

Anyway, if you’d like to check out the new section of my Bird List, it’s here.

Today is the 6th anniversary of the day I started photographing birds. On May 11th 2011, I photographed my first bird – a Brown Thrasher.

Brown Thrasher (2011)

I now have 425 birds on my photographed life list. They are from 4 different countries:

• Canada (166)
• Costa Rica (237)
• Cuba (16)
• Mexico (6)

The Canadian ones are taken from 3 different provinces:

• British Columbia (16)
• Ontario (1)
• Saskatchewan (149)

My list increased by an amazing 255 birds this last year, largely due to my birding trip to Costa Rica in December. Every year I do a slide show of the birds I’ve photographed in the last year and post it on Youtube. I’m working on this year’s but it may take awhile – to put together and to watch! If you’re interested in past years’ efforts just search “Dianne’s Birds” on Youtube.

And the last bird added this year? A Loggerhead Shrike, that I photographed on a Golden Eagles trip to Redberry Lake yesterday.

Loggerhead Shrike (2017)

I love birding!