Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Archive for the ‘Birding’ Category

One morning at breakfast, this African Pied Wagtail put his charm on…

Their songs are one of my favorite of all the birds I’ve ever heard.

African Long-crested Eagle

It has 249 pictures from our recent trip to Nairobi.

You can go there at www.mccalled.com/photographs/africabirds/ or just click on the graphic above.

The Creation of God

I was sitting at our desk which faces the porch from the inside of the banda.  Out of the corner of my eye I caught some movement in one of the trees outside.  As soon as my eyes focused through the screen on the window, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at and what was looking right back at me.  A male African Paradise-flycatcher.

If you are not into bird-watching, you may be asking, “what’s the big deal?”  Watching birds has become far more than a hobby to me.  It has become a significant way of me noticing more and more of God’s detail in His creation.  More of His creativity.  More of His ability.  To make some of the things I’ve seen absolutely requires a Creator.  There are thousands and thousands of different species of birds in the world, each with its own size, color, beak shape, song, and so on and so on.  All of these are details God came up with just because He wanted to and could.

So, each time I see a bird I’ve never seen before or have the chance to watch how He made them to live, I feel blessed.  Honestly, I do because it is more than just about this bird or that bird.  It is about God… and me…

I had no idea my brain could function the way it has over the past 3 weeks.  So much information for such a small mind as mine!!!

Dana is leveling out morning sickness wise.  Not sure if it is because of the vitamin B complex or the surpassing the 1st trimester mark.  Either way, she’s now hungry almost all the time!  Jonathan likie.

We’ve settled into our banda with the Nicholls. It is so nice to be able to stand all the way up in our room!  I received word today that we’ll be moving again… yet another step up.  We’ll have a banda with a small kitchen to ourselves!  We should move at the end of this month.

Not much news outside Swahili overflow.  Oh, we’re in the process of buying a vehicle.  Takes 4-6 months to finally get it (importing from Japan) so pray that it is fast for us and we have it by the end of language school in mid-December.  We’re dipping a little further into our savings than expected to get a vehicle but it will be well worth it.  I wish I had even just a moped right now!  You don’t realize how much you depend on private vehicle ownership until you’re without it for a month.

Saturday morning gave me some free time to actually go bird watching.  My species count is up to 28 at this point.  There are tons of birds here.  I heard 400+ species can be found at the campsite alone!  Anyway, here’s one of my favorite so far.  It is a Little Bee-eater.  From the bottom picture, you can see how it got its name!

NOTE: No super spiritual material is contained within this post. It is merely hobby-based, and to be frank… you’ll probably never find any super spiritual stuff on here anyway. We normal folk just like you.

I got up before dawn this morning to go birdwatching at a renowned spring bird migration area, Latta Park. It didn’t disappoint as there was quite a bit for me to shoot (like the above shot; Robins rarely squat on a limb like this one). After about an hour and a half at the park, I noticed what was obviously a group of the real deal birdwatchers, probably from the local audubon or something. I asked if I could join them and was welcomed. They were constantly calling out, “There’s a…”, “In the far oak is a…”, “On that lower branch to the right there is a…” and so on. Thing is, I didn’t see but one out of about 35 they pointed out. I think they were making all of it up. Just kidding. Obviously my eyes haven’t developed to the point of being able to tell the difference between an odd-shaped leaf or a Cape May Warbler on the top branch of a 70-foot oak tree.

I broke off from the group to go watch birds with the other amateurs around me… myself and I.

Today’s good: We met with an attorney today to draw up our last will and testament. Turns out she is also a member of our home church HGBC and may have us come speak to their class as a partnership development opportunity. Dios es bueno!

This is a cool website I found that has links to TONS of bird cams around the world. Take a moment and check out some unbelievable free video. www.birdwatchingblog.com

Dana and I went to Waxhaw yesterday after church to check our PO Box and nest boxes. Low and behold 3 of the bluebird eggs have hatched! And, in the other house we left behind, there were four little Carolina Chickadee eggs. Thought I’d share the good news.

* The above picture is one I found online that is an example of what Chickadee eggs look like.  They’re just a tad bit bigger than jelly beans.  God is big.

That’s how far we traveled last week on our trip to Florida. We started out with a 12-hour adventure to St. Petersburg long before the sun came up. The drive was supposed to be only 10 hours but once we arrived at our reserved hotel, well… it was, let’s say, not as we had hoped. Sparing the details of why we decided not to stay there, I quickly got on the phone with our credit card’s concierge service through whom we were using our rewards points. They ended up booking us at The Pier Hotel right in downtown St. Pete. I would HIGHLY recommend this hotel to anybody. Check out their website and you’ll see why. What you see online doesn’t even do justice to how nice it really is in person.

We spent a few days site seeing and bird watching before visiting an afternoon with my Aunt Lois in Lake Wales. We were greeted with freshly squeezed orange juice and a box full of beautiful pink grapefruit. Thanks Aunt Lois!!!

We left there to try to catch a glimpse of a painted bunting on the way to our second overnight destination of the trip, Palm Coast. We stayed at another awesome hotel there, the Microtel Inn & Suites.

We swung by Anastasia State Park on our way out of town and saw quite a few warblers and Cedar Waxwings high in the trees along the park’s nature trail. Watching those little boogers is hard on your neck!  Then, our 7-hour drive home finished at 9 hours due to the heavy Easter traffic. All-in-all it was a great trip. It was great to get away for a little while to recharge and get our second wind for more partnership development. We’re still 43% short so tomorrow will be busy with e-mails and phone calls!