Third blogiversary!

My photo of a Screaming Piha which will be used in Spiny Software's newest birding application for iPhone -- and for which I was paid twenty whole dollars!

Am I now a professional photographer?

So today is the third blogiversary for this little bird bloggy, which started as a way to document my fledgling efforts (heh heh) at learning about birds. It seems like a million years ago now, as my life was dramatically different then: I was living in the Marsh House with Kat, working with a Peterson's guide published in the 1930s (which I got for a quarter at a book sale!), trying to build my own spotting scope, and trying to figure out what the heck a "meme" was. Ah, the memories!
Back then, my first lifelist had 44 species on it -- including a few mistakes -- calling a house finch a purple finch, etc. Silly me. I also counted the great horned owl my dad brought home -- the owl that chased me around the backyard. I don't count that one now, as he was captive.

I also named what I thought were the top ten most beautiful US birds -- it was, looking back at it now, kind of a silly list! Here it is:
1. Cardinal
2. Indigo bunting
3. Dark-eyed junco (incredibly cute)
4. Red-tailed hawk
5. Mallard (male--sorry, female)
6. Snowy egret
7. Barn owl (love that face)
8. Bluebird
9. Rose-breasted grosbeak
10. Ruby-throated hummingbird

I gotta say that my choices today would be quite different. Here they are, in no particular order (except for the Blackburnian--it's my favorite):
Blackburnian Warbler
Painted Bunting
Eastern Bluebird
Hooded Warbler
Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Varied Thrush
Tree Swallow
Indigo Bunting

I know that's only eight birds -- but I wanted to just list the ones that came into my mind without looking at a list.

So -- three years into it, and I have over 200 (barely) birds on my lifelist. I have a decent spotting scope and my Leupold binocs that I bought at a flea market for $30 bucks (but which are worth quite a bit more, it turns out). I have a decent point-and-shoot digital camera, and I've taken some photos that I'm pretty proud of. I've made a lot of great friends, both online and in person. All in all, this whole birding thing has been one of the best things in my life, even when the rest of my life sucked.

Soon I'll be beginning to bird all over again -- a new place, a new field guide, and a new life. It's gonna take me at least another three years to document that process. I hope you'll stick around for it.

Thanks for the memories!