A Spotted Towhee contemplating her next move

My phone has a pretty great camera, but after many lackluster specimen photos and no ability to zoom, I figured I should try to level up using better equipment. A few days ago I dug up John’s DSLR and have been noodling around with it. And by noodling around I mean taking photos on the Auto setting.

But I have mostly figured out how to use the zoom, and caught a shot of this little visitor taking a breather on our deck railing. These Spotted Towhees (Pipilo maculatus) show up every spring, showing off their sporty plumage and performing silly dig-hops as they search for bugs in the leaf litter. Sometimes they come up to the deck looking for whatever seeds the Chickadees rudely eject from the feeder.

Anyhow, this is the extent of my zooming capability, so I’ll probably stick to taking photos of plants for the time being. And so far they are looking pretty good! The camera is a Nikon D90 with a NIKKOR 18-200mm lens. Here are a few shots (some edited) I took for the Plant List: