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Ash Canyon - December 23, 2024

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 No, I haven't found a way to turn back time.  Well, maybe I did, in a way.  Given that my failed hard drive could not be repaired, and my local repair man was unable to recover data from it, I was left to my own devices (so to speak).  I went back to the SD card in the camera and applied some software magic purchased (for a month) to recover the data there, which I had made sure would not be over written.  Bottom line, I recovered all the photos I had lost, plus some.  A little effort viewing and selecting those for further processing, and I was back where I left off. There were two reasons I wanted to recover the lost files: one was an Anna's Hummingbird with a beautiful gorget; another was a Sharp-shinned Hawk that paid me a visit perched on a branch about thirty feet away.  I'll start with the hawk, almost a smaller version of a Cooper's Hawk, but with some subtle differences in terms of features.  My on-line resource says the male is the size...
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Ash Canyon - December 30, 2024

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 I actually went birding on December 23 and had pretty good success, including a Sharp Shinned Hawk that perched on a dead branch less than thirty feet from me.  We stared at each other for perhaps ten minutes, then the Sharpie moved to another branch and posed some more.  Since this was the first time I've been so close to one, I took lots of photos.  Unfortunately, after moving the photos to my laptop, the hard drive on my laptop failed before I could back up the files.  Bummer.  A local repair shop replaced the hard drive but couldn't recover the data.  I haven't given up on recovering the data myself, so I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, I'm back in business with a commitment to back up files before doing anything else. There was a small, but congenial group of us at the sanctuary for my last outing of the year.  While there was nothing particularly noteworthy, I did get a nice variety.  On the way home, I stopped by a location...
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Ash Canyon - December 21, 2024

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 For various reasons I had not been birding for quite a while.  Unfortunately, my return was not the greatest success.  While there were lots of birds, there just weren't that many bird species at the sanctuary this day.  Also, no unusual species made an appearance, just the regulars. I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas. Acorn Woodpecker (M) Acorn Woodpecker (F) Yellow-rumped Warbler Pine Siskin Coues Whitetail White-crowned Sparrow & House Finch (M) Chipping Sparrow Ladder-backed Woodpecker (M) Broad-tailed (F) Curve-billed Thrasher Lesser Goldfinch (F) Bridled Titmouse
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Ash Canyon - December 9, 2024

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 A nice little group of birders was present this day, mainly because Tim had posted the Painted Bunting on eBird.  People were there to see her, and we did.  A Cactus Wren showed up, not a frequent visitor here.  Tim thought he heard a Montezuma Quail , but we never saw one.  A Broad-tailed Hummingbird surprised everyone, since they should have migrated by now. Most of the regulars were there in large numbers.  On my way out, a Coyote crossed the road about 200 yards ahead.  By the time I reached that area, he was deep in the weeds, so my photo is not very good. Yellow-rumped Warbler Painted Bunting (F) Curve-billed Thrasher Coues White-tail Pyrrhuloxia (F) Pyrrhuloxia (M) Lesser Goldfinch (M) Chipping Sparrow House Finch (M) House Finch (F) Broad-tailed (M) Orange-crowned Warbler White-crowned Sparrow Cactus Wren Coyote
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