It’s been more than a year since I decided to return to photography beyond what I can do with the (deceptively good) camera built into a smartphone. In 2023, I took quite a lot of photos with my entry-level mirrorless Olympus digital, almost all with a 150mm lens that achieves good enough optical zoom to go beyond anything I’ve done with any camera I’ve owned. So this was my first full year carrying a camera that can in principle capture images of wildlife — though not yet the strongest skill set using it. Or, indeed, as much lens as I really ought to have for images of anything that can run or fly away from an aspiring paparazzo. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy with some of the images I got, including enough birds to merit a personal retrospective, in this post. Many more are on Flickr, tagged appropriately.

Up top: one of the white-crowned sparrows I saw on the dunes at Asilomar, in between sessions at the first in-person meeting of the American Society of Naturalists I’ve attended since 2020.