What Has Happened?

As I approached my 50's I found myself having more time on my hands to pursue my hobbies. With all our kids moved out on their own I began spending more time doing things I had put off for several years. I had always wanted to have a parrot but knew the great commitment of time and effort they take so I had not gotten one. With more time on my hands I decided to finally go for it and adopted a Moluccan Cockatoo that had been in a neglected and somewhat abusive situation. For several years she had been feed nothing but a seed diet and after the novelty wore of she was pretty much ignored, which lead to her becoming a screaming nuisance in the home. When the father of the house could no longer stand the screaming she was placed in their garage and was near freezing when a concerned neighbor stepped up and took her. After a few day he realized he was in over his head and eventually was referred to me and I took her in. I had her for 9 months and sadly one afternoon while sitting in the cottonwood tree in our back yard she had a seizure and died instantly. Broken hearted I applied for and adopted an umbrella cockatoo and then a couple of months later an orange-winged amazon.

In addition to getting my parrots I started dedicating almost all of my discretionary time to volunteering as a naturalist for the Division of Wildlife at Farmington Bay. Life was good I was birding at least once a week in addition to guiding tours and teaching classes at Farmington Bay. I began building my life list, posting my sightings on Bird Talk and having a great time. This lasted for about 4 years and then all the sudden the last year I have gotten so busy I hardly get time to go birding any more and with my work schedule changing to 10 hour days I no longer had the time to spend with my parrots that they needed so I had to re-home them for their sake. Lat week I committed to getting out and birding over the Christmas long weekend. Watching the postings on bird Talk for Pygmy Nuthatch, Long-tailed Ducks, Ruffs Longspurs etc. I needed to get out. Well last weekend didn't work out as I planned, I did spend some time watching and photographing birds at a home in Pleasantview north of Ogden while my wife was there training for her home based business. While I saw nothing new I did get some long awaited pictures of several of my favorite backyard birds.

Well this weekend is New Years and another long weekend, again I am committing to myself to get out and check out some of the sights posted on Bird Talk.

I don't exactly know what has happened but I do know I need to set aside time to pursue my birding obsession. Here are some pictures of the birds from last Saturday