Skintastic!

In what can only be described as a cluster eff of epic proportions yesterday evening I was rear-ended at a stop light in my less than a year old car (that I saved forever for) by a handicapped hoarder.  Yes, it's a mouthful and a run on sentence, but it's the truth.  No jokes and his admission.  He bent over to pick up a "relic" from the floor, took his foot off the brake and while rolling into me looked up, panicked and hit the gas......

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Why I Always Go Back to the New

Briefly, because I know we all have better things to be doing, I wanted to share a couple of images with you showing why I come to the New River Birding & Nature Festival every single year.Male cerulean warbler.Two words having to do with warblers: Cerulean and Swainson's.Both of these birds were digiscoped today on my trip down Sugar Creek Road to the Gauley River. And I only took the images AFTER we'd shown every participant views of these......

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James Perse: The Holy Grail of Cotton T-Shirts

...and cashmere too.To me, James Perse is synonymous with amazing t-shirts.  I fell hard for his t's about 7 years ago after running my hand across one while walking through Nordstrom.  It was definitely a stop, drop, and roll out your credit card moment, and the beginning of the end of all my other relationships with basic t-shirt brands.Cut to present day and my t-shirt drawer is almost exclusively James Perse with a peppering of T by......

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Best Boyfriend in All the World

And no I don't mean my own, although he is pretty good too.  :)In this case I am referring to Current/Elliott's Boyfriend Denim.  The first time I set my eyes on a pair of these I instinctively knew it was the beginning of a long and meaningful relationship.  Working for Gap, Inc. over a period of years instilled in me a great love and respect for denim and Current/Elliott has, in my opinion, cornered the market on premium denim. ......

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Part 3 Birding Guyana: Flying to the Interior

Buff-necked ibis.I like to start off my BOTB blog posts with a bird photograph if at all possible. So I am inserting this image of a buff-necked ibis here, even though it is out of order in the time line of this post. I believe the buff-necked ibis might be the second most beautiful ibis in the New World, right behind the scarlet ibis. Good thing there is not a Scarlett Johannson ibis, or that might take the crown. Now, where were we...Oh yes! Guyana.After......

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Welcome

I have always had a love for clothing.  When I was a wee little girl and the other girls were collecting baby dolls pretending to be moms, I was to the brim with Barbies and begging for more outfits.  Superstar Stage Show anyone?  And that was just the beginning.  8 years ago I found myself making a career transition to Los Angeles from Seattle.  I was not exactly happy about it, but believed the job would be a good experience......

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My Digiscoped Bird of the Day

I flew into Phoenix, Arizona today and took this photo of a male Gambel's quail in a northern suburb of that fair town. The light was weak and it was drizzling—very un-Arizona-like conditions, actually. Plus it was chilly! But I could not resist trying to capture an image of this dude while he was singing.I'm out here to give the keynote talk at the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary here in Cottonwood,......

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Finding a Pileated Woodpecker Nest

Let's take a short break from our Guyana adventure and enjoy a bird species that's closer to home—at least for those of us in North America.Two weeks ago I was walking in the old orchard on our farm and I heard the tell-tale sounds of a woodpecker excavating a nest cavity. I followed the sound until I was reasonably sure I knew which large, dead tree was going to be the nest site. However, the tree (a dead yellow poplar trunk) had at least a dozen......

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Guyana Part 3: Botanical Gardens

Yellow-crowned (Amazon) parrot in the botanical gardens of Georgetown.After a restful night's sleep in the air-conditioned comfort of the Hotel Pegasus in Georgetown, we staggered downstairs with all of our gear for our first full day of birding in Guyana.And when I say "staggered downstairs" I mean it literally—at least for myself. The evening before I had gotten stuck in one of the hotel's two elevators for about 15 minutes, trying to descend from......

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Guyana Part 2: Shorebirds at Dusk

After getting back off the boats from the Mahaica River in the late afternoon, we enjoyed a few minutes of air-conditioned comfort on the bus as we drove to our next destination: a tidal area of mangroves and mudflats that was a good shorebird spot. This was a somewhat unexpected stop in that it was not on the itinerary, but our Georgetown-based birding guides wanted to show it to us, and we were glad they did.In the tropics, near the Equator, the......

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Mahaica River Boat Trip

Mere hours after landing, bleary-eyed from an all-night flight at Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Georgetown, Guyana I found myself stepping gingerly over some rotted wooden dock boards into an aluminum (or "al-you-min-ee-yum" as my British fellow travelers would say) pair of boats for a short afternoon boat trip on the Mahaica River.The sun beat down on everything—living, barely living, clearly not living—equally and I felt that sort of dizzy-in-the-head......

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Blink and Whoosh!

Blue-gray gnatcatcher.Dear Readers:My sincere apologies for the sparse and irregular posts of late. After my first Guyana post last Monday I had the very best of intentions last week about sharing some more from that trip but then life revved up into krazy-train mode. I blinked and it's another Monday!I will try to do better this week. I hope you'll stick with me (I do appreciate your patience).In other news the blue-gray gnatcatchers got in this......

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Cara Perawatan Cucak Hijau

Burung Cucak Hijau adalah salah satu burung yang tidak bisa dipandang sebelah mata. Bintangnya semakin gemilang, terbukti di lomba-lomba burung berkicau di beberapa daerah, kelas yang dibuka untuk burung ini selalu penuh. Bahkan sudah sangat banyak transfer gacoan Cucak Hijau dengan nilai sangat fantastis. KARAKTER DASAR BURUNG CUCAK HIJAU Semi fighter. Burung ini bukanlah burung petarung murni, daya tarung yang ada pada burung ini cenderung akibat ......

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Cara Merawat Anis Kembang

ANIS KEMBANG Burung Anis Kembang memiliki suara dan alunan lagu yang sangat baik. Merawat burung Anis Kembang sebenarnya cukup mudah, apabila kita telah mengetahui dan memahami karakter-karakter dasar dari burung tersebut. KARAKTER DASAR BURUNG ANIS KEMBANG Sangat sensitif......

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