Birchside Studios

Welcome to George West's Birding Homepage.

Use the links to the left to navigate to the Hummingbird banding sites and reports, Trip Reports, the Birder's Guide to Alaska information, and the Photo Gallery.

This Snail Kite was searching for the large snails in Harn's Pond in Lehigh Acres near Ft. Myers, Florida in September 2008. There is a small population of these birds in the area. This one is a juvenile. The photo was taken in early morning light using an ISO of 800, 1/1000 at f/13, Canon 1D Mark II camera, 300 mm f/2.8 lens, and 1.4x teleconverter. The snails are larger than the native apple snails and were introduced to the area.

The second updated and fully revised edition of the "Birder's Guide to Alaska" from the American Birding Association (ABA) is now available. See details under Alaska Guide in the left side menu.
If you have comments about the new edition, please write to me (George West) at kbaybird@aol.com. Updates and errors we find will be listed in the Alaska Guide section of this web site (see link in menu at left).

We are writing a Question and Answer book about Hummingbirds as part of a series of four books on pollinators published by Rutgers University Press. The first book "Do Butterflies Bite?" is already available. The second and third books will be about Bees and Bats; "Do Hummingbirds Hum?" will be the last in the series and should be out in spring 2009. The book will have nine chapters covering Basics, Systems and Senses, Feathers and Bones, Hummingbird Reproduction, Hummingbirds on the Move, Dangers and Defenses, Attracting and Feeding, Identifying and Photographing, and Research and Conservation.
Dr. Carol Butler from New York is the coauthor of each book while an "expert" is the lead author. Together we organize the questions, write the answers, and edit each other's text. There will be 8 color pages of hummingbird photographs and I will be providing art work for the text pages in gray scale or black and white. I think you will enjoy the book and it should provide you with some interesting information about a family of birds that everyone enjoys.

If you would like to view a number of photos, please go to the side menu and click on one of the Photo Gallery pages.