Non-astronomical Interests

Mary Kormendy

Our former home near Dripping Springs, TX (We moved to downtown Austin in May 2022.)

We got interested in birds during a trip to Australia in 1996.

Our bird pictures from around the world follow standard ecozones approximately but not exactly:

Birds from the USA and Canada:   our house,   Hornsby Bend and greater Austin,   Texas,   California,   Hawaii,   Canada,

Neotropic birds from Central America and the Caribbean:   Honduras,   Costa Rica,   Panama,   Trinidad and Tobago

Neotropic birds from South America:   Colombia 2024,   Ecuador,   Ecuador 2017,   Ecuador 2021,   Peru 2022,   Bolivia 2022,   Chile 2023,   Argentina 2022,   Brazil,   Brazil 2023.

Western palearctic birds:   Europe: Germany, Finland, Norway,   Europe: United Kingdom,   Europe: Spain,   the Canary Islands,   Europe: Lesbos, Greece,   Israel

Eastern palearctic birds:   China near Beijing (see the trip travelogs, below, for southern and Himalayan China)

Birds from Africa:   The Gambia,   South Africa

Indo-Malayan birds from   India: North-west (Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand)   India: North-east (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya)   India: Central (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh)

See the trip travelogs, below, for our 5 trips to India and one trip to Sri Lanka.

Birds from   Australia,   New Zealand.

See the trip travelogs, below, for our post-covid trips to Antarctica and subantarctic islands, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Borneo, Singapore, and islands of the South Pacific from Indonesia to Chile.

For our 2014 December trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2016 May-June trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2017 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

Hawaii 2017: Beach, birding, sightseeing, and IfA50 Conference

For our 2017 December trip to Ecuador, see >this web site.

For our 2018 March trip to India, see this travelog.

For our 2018 May trip to China, see this travelog.

For our 2018 October trip from Munich to Budapest, Hungary see this travelog.

For our 2018 November trip to China, see this travelog.

For our 2019 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2019 July trip to China, see this travelog.

For our 2021 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For the 2021 August 3 & 4 migration of Purple martins through Austin, see this web site.

For our 2021 December trip to Ecuador, see this web site.

For our 2022 January-February trip to Peru, see this web site.

For our 2022 July-August trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea, see this web site.

For our 2022 September trip to Bolivia, see this web site.

For our 2022 November-December pre-trip to Argentina (before our Antarctic cruise), see this web site.

For our 2022 November-December cruise to Antarctica, see this web site.

For our 2023 January birding in Chile, see this web site.

For our 2023 January-March cruise from Chile to Antarctica and around South America to Miami, FL, see this web site.

For our 2023 March-April birding in south Florida (after the Seabourn cruise), see this web site.

For our 2023 November-December birding to Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands, and South India, see this web site.

For John's 2024 February-March birding in Colombia, see this web site.

For our 2024 May-June cruise from Iceland to Jan Mayen Island to and around the Svalbard Archipelago, see this web site.

For our 2024 June 25-30 stay in Paris, see this web site.

For our 2025 April 21 - May 3 trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.

For our 2025 July 16-22 stay in Paris, see this web site.

For our 2025 July vacation and birding in Singapore, see this web site.

For our 2025 August birding in north-west Australia, see this web site.

For our 2025 August-October Seabourn cruise from Australia to Chile, see this web site.

For our 2026 January-February trip to New Zealand and 3rd cruise to Antarctica, see this web site.

For my 2026 March-April trip to Borneo and Singapore, see this web site.

For my 2026 August trip to Kenya, see this web site.

Scuba diving: This is near Grand Piton, Saint Lucia (depth about 70 feet); Mary and John.

Travel and photography: This was part of Sete Quedas, Rio Parana, Brazil, before it was flooded by the Itaipu Dam reservoir. Other destinations

Opera has been a major passion since my graduate student days. I have seen ~ 150 live performances and have been privileged to hear, among others, Joan Sutherland in Lucia di Lammermoor, Montserrat Caballé in Norma, Mirella Freni as Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Jon Vickers in Fidelio and as Siegmund in Die Walküre (signature performances that make it hard to see anybody else in these roles), Placido Domingo as Cavaradossi in Tosca, and Luciano Pavarotti as Radamès in Aïda. It is appropriate also to include our good fortune in seeing Yul Brynner in The King and I.

The New York Metropolitan Opera's Don Carlo is the best performance that we have seen.

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