Birding with an Expert

Today we went birding with Grammy's half brother, Greg Lasley. You can see his beautiful wildlife photography at greglasley.net. He has several coffee table books that Sam has loved since he was little. Greg had agreed to take us birding about a month or so ago when I had emailed him to ask where we might see a Painted Bunting. Sam, our resident birder, has been wanting to see one. Really we all have because it is such a beautiful, colorful little bird. Anyway, today was the scheduled day. We met out in East Austin on some city owned property where Greg has special access. It was such a beautiful, sunny and cool morning. Perfect for birding. We immediately saw a Painted Bunting on a wire. Never mind that it flew away because Greg has this special device for calling birds. It is a recording device that plays the birds call which makes the bird come closer to investigate who is in his territory. It was very cool. He then set up a nice scope to look at the bird. I took the picture of the Painted Bunting with my little digital camera looking through the scope. Fuzzy but still proof we saw it. I'm sure Greg thought I was quite the amateur. It was fun to see everything through the eyes and ears of a real birder who knows all the birds and their calls.