My wife Fran and I were in southeast Arizona this past late April where I attended a weeklong workshop on hummingbird photography conducted by Ralph Paonessa. This was quite enlightening and I have become addicted to the vast applications of multi-strobe photography. One non-hummingbird application came when I found a Carolina mantid (Stagmomantis carolina) in Fran's salvia garden.

In late June, a White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) was found feeding in a water-filled roadside ditch south of Nags Head, Dare County, NC by an out-of-state birder. I was able to respond rapidly and secured this image on 3 July, 2002. This is the first documented occurrence of this species in NC.

North Carolina has had, in the past 3-4 years, a number of surprising events involving unexpected or unusual hummingbird species as well as individuals with bizarre plumages. Shown here is a complete albino (note pink eyes) hummer which showed up at a residence in north Wake County, NC in late August. The streak of cinnamon color on the wing is pollen. It disappeared with a weather change two days after I secured a few "shoot-from-the-hip" images on 2 September. Susan Campbell, a hummingbird bander, was thwarted in her efforts to trap, band and carefully identify it by it's untimely disappearance. It was likely a Rubythroated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) but we'll never know for sure.

A newly-described lily species from the Sandhills region recently made it's "debut". Bruce Sorrie, a Moore County, NC professional botanist and a colleague recently published the official description of the Sandhills Lily (Lilium pyrophylum). Bruce was kind enough to make a couple of locales known to me and here it is. A very rare beauty!