On Friday I joined the Bayou LA Batre field trip at the Alabama Coastal Birding Festival.  We visited several birdy locations in the Bayou La Batre area.  I posted an illustrated trip report on gobirding.us. One of the highlights of the trip for me was the number of dragonflies bunched up along the coast as they migrate south for the winter. There were more Black Saddlebags than I have ever seen in one place at one time, a few Red Saddlebags, Green Darners (of course), and lots of Wandering Gliders. The best for me though, were the dozens of Roseate Skimmers I found in a drainage ditch along one of the roads we walked while looking for birds. We don’t get Roseares in Maine. I have only seen them in Texas up to this trip. Lovely bugs!

Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.

And for the Sunday Thought. With my growing interest in dragonflies added to my interest in butterflies it is becoming obvious that I no longer fit the traditional birder mold. On the Bayou La Batre field trip, I spent as much time looking at and photographing dragonflies and butterflies as I did looking at and photographing birds. I often found myself way behind the group as I was waylaid by an interesting bug. On the long (or short).stretches of trail or roadside between birds and likely birding spots, while the real birders truged and chatted, only half paying attention, I was still on full alert, checking out every bug I came across. I am sure some of the real birders in the group got tired of my pointing out Saddlebags and Skimmers, Fritillaries and Long-tailed Skippers. One lady asked if I were more of an entomologist than a birder. I had to explain that my interest in birds was a keen as ever, but I supposed it was fair to say that I was becoming more of a general naturalist, with interests in bugs and reptiles and wildflowers and trees…with the whole living world. If makes me the odd man out on birding field trips, so be it. If they are not interested in the Roseate Skimmers in the drainage ditch, it is their loss. 🙂

To me it is the natural continuation of the outward turn that birding is part of. Once you get your eyes of yourself and your inner drama, and focused on the wonder and variety of the Creation that we are emersed in, even if you begin, as many do, with birds, how do you stop there? Why would you stop there? There is so much to see and so much to learn. For the naturalist, there is, literally, never a dull moment in the field.

And if, like me, your interest is, in fact, your offering to the Creator God, an act of worship and fellowship, then certainly you would not want to miss the Roseate Skimmers in the ditch.

Happy Sunday!