DARE TO BIRD

I was honoured to be a judge for the 2022 Audubon Photography Awards. There were so many amazing photos to go through from talented people including youth! The winners were just released publicly and Liron Gertsman a graduate of my young birder program and dear friend won in 2 categories and got honourable mention in another! He has won in the Audubon Photography Awards before too! All judging was done blindly so when I found out Liron had won the Professional, Video and Professional Honourable Mention, it was so exciting. I could not wait till he found out the results! Check out all of the stunning images who won and the honourable mentions  HERE . The details of the cash and trip prizes are found HERE Congratulations to all the winners and honourable mentions! White-tailed Ptarmigan in Jasper, AB (Professional Grand Prize Winner) - Photo: Liron Gertsman  You can also check out the beautiful images from the Top 100 HERE as well. Liron Gertsman also has two images in here!  Congratu

Young Birders on a trip to Pitt Meadows - Photo: Melissa Hafting I led a Young Birder Trip to Pitt Meadows on July 3rd -2022. The weather was awful and a few youth cancelled understandably due to the heavy rain. Incredibly 10 youth still came out and wanted to go look for the rare birds in the area. I was amazed by their enthusiasm and positive attitude and thought it was sweet they wanted to spend time with me and see great birds. We met up at Pitt Lake and walked the dyke at Catbird Slough to where a Chesnut-sided Warbler had been found a week prior by Mike Klotz and Carli Gilmore. On the walk out we had heavy rain of course but also Osprey, Gray Catbirds, Eastern Kingbirds, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Swainson's Thrushes, Rufous Hummingbirds, Willow Flycatchers, Cedar Waxwings and a couple American Redstarts including a dazzling male. We also had a few Band-tailed Pigeons and Black Swifts which would only be a small fraction of the huge numbers we got later in the day. At the site t