Little did I know that a single bird walk at Lost Maples would be life changing. Checking birds off a list is good. But discovering new details, different calls, or behaviors you hadn’t yet experienced in both new-to-you species and familiar is the real reward. It is also the photographs captured, people on the trail and the ‘homework’ of researching new questions brought on by the day’s experience. Add in butterflies, dragonflies, plants and each walk is a treasure hunt where the more I look, the more I find.
I do not have a ‘spark bird’ but the bird hosts Les and Jane Hall sparked not only the birder in me but a desire to share that passion with others. As ‘Volunteer Extraordinaire’, I led interpretive walks at Lost Maples and Love Creek Preserve, participate in butterfly and Audubon Christmas Bird counts, and organize City Nature Challenge events. I continue to participate in these events and volunteer.
As a skilled birder and educator, I am privileged to keep doing what I love when I founded Busy-Birding.
I look forward to spending time together and THANK YOU for allowing me to
NURTURE YOUR LOVE FOR NATURE !
Sincerely,
Laura M. Levy
Medina, Texas
About Us
The great thing about Birding - and any venture is you can get into it as deep as you wish. Yes, we feel sort of undressed without binoculars hanging on our neck. And a pen and notebook. And for 'real walks', our sturdy Nikon 7000 with a Sigma 100-400 lens. And of course, drinks and snacks. And maybe a cell phone. And yes, we did start our own Custom Nature tour company.
But we draw the line at carrying around a scope and dropping everything to 'chase' rare birds or do just about anything to add a new bird to our life list. That said, you know we are the biggest cheerleaders for CITIZEN SCIENCE. So in case you were wondering just HOW BUSY we've been birding, here are glimpses of our eBird and iNaturalist profiles for 2024.
By the Numbers
eBird
The AZ birds were during a 2-year stint in Southeast Arizona (Double Adobe) but we haven't left Texas since returning...seriously!
We are proud to be a Top Birder at Lost Maples in both number of checklists (many for the weekly walks we lead in the Spring) and number of species seen. We promise, you will absolutely laugh when you find out what our nemesis bird is at Lost Maples. We are hoping to make it Species # 127+ in 2025!
We had 192 species for all of 2024 and 159 in Bandera County that year. Birds seen in Texas but not Bandera County were mostly in nearby Hill Country counties (Kerr, Kendall, Kimble, Uvalde) plus quick trips to Houston and Rockport. We are far from aspiring to be Century Club members (100 birds in 100 counties in TX).
eBird is a data-geek's dream that will record and summarize stats by species, location, county, date etc. But we'll stop here and let you save the details for our Boot Camp.
iNat
iNaturalist currently recognizes Viruses, Archaea, Bacteria, Chromista, Protozoa, Fungi, Animal and Plant Kingdoms. Although we did start out in molecular biology that was a while ago. We've only posted in the last of 3 of those 8 kingdoms in iNat with most of our bird observations in eBird instead. Here's our observations for 2024! As you might expect, a good portion of last year's work was during the City Nature Challenge. Where our 1,016 observations (10th) representing 448 species (6th) ranked us 10th and 6th highest participants in the event for the 12-County San Antonio Metro Area.
Grand total include 3182 observations, 973 species and 844 identifications.
We love hearing from you!
Laura@Busy-Birding.com
830-328-2662
