American Avocet

One of my goals for the past year or so has been to build a website to go along with the blog. My hope is that when it is finished the website will become a resource for birders and naturalists. I plan to have as many different pictures of each species as possible, pictures at different angles, in different lighting, different times of the year and varying stages of development, so that it can help people to make identifications. So I have been pouring through pictures, cutting them into a standard size and then organizing them in preparation. While going through California pics, that I took in 2007, I found a couple of pics that I never published in the blog and I decided that this would be as good a time as any. I photographed this American avocet at the Elkhorn Slough located near Monterey Bay, CA in February of 2007.

The first pic from California would be an example of an American avocet in its winter plumage. This second photo was taken in May of 2007 at the Medicine Lake NWR in Montana. This is an example of an American avocet in breeding plumage. This would be an example of the type of differences that I hope to illustrate through my photos when I eventually get the website up and running.