Pacific Slope
Notes on Photographing
This is a note and an apology from the person primarily responsible for some
of the bird related pages on Doin' the Doug (Milo Mecham).
As you will be able to tell by my photos, I am an amateur photographer. I
try to take pictures of some of the birds I see while hiking, or at home.
Birds are wild animals, thus it is not their fault that I only have the top
half and bottom half of the Red Crossbill (it
was a windy day), or that the Gold Crowned Kinglet
and so many others, posed perfectly behind a branch (obviously it was the
branch's fault).
I take the pictures because I am also an amateur birder and I hope to use
the pictures to confirm my field identification.
I also like looking at pictures of birds in their natural habitat.
This set of pages is presented based on the assumption that you will enjoy
looking at some bird pictures too. I have not tried to erase all the
background, as is done in most guide books that use photos, because I think
it helps to understand the birds, because it helps understand the color
variation, and because it is a lot of work, requiring time that I would
rather spend taking other pictures of birds.
All identifications are my best efforts, and are all tenuous (such as
especially the Pacific-Slope Flycatcher).
This is entirely the fault of the birds. If they would wear identifying
signs, it would be so much easier.
The purpose of the list, and of the bird pages associated with the list, is
to encourage the reader to enjoy the beauty that can be found in the Doug.
There is beauty and wonder not just in the trees, but in the flowers, and
the rivers, and in the birds, as I hope you will see in these pages.
Take the bird list as a challenge: to visit the (proposed) Douglas-Fir
National Monument, to look for birds, and to see the birds listed, or
others, and to see if you can get a better picture than I could.
If you are a birder, you will know that to identify the birds on this list,
you really need a guide, and there are several really good ones out there.
If you are the kind of birder that I am a photographer, you will not be able
to identify any but the most obvious birds listed here from the pictures,
unless you get yourself one of the guides. If you can tell that I have
mis-identified one or more of the birds presented here, please let dns@efn.org know and we will make a correction.
Take this and all the rest of the discussions of the Doug as an invitation
to go out and see the beauty to be found in the woods for yourself.
Back to the Bird Guide