Day One Of Big Half Year Challenge

So my goal is to do a fundraiser for the Friends of Sax Zim Bog to help build a welcome center up there.  My goal is to see how many different species of birds I can digiscope between January 1, 2013 - June 30, 2013.

I took my first outing today at Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge to knock out a few of the feeder species and I found myself in a quandary...I was able to get photos of tons of birds, mostly in focus but I knew that if lighting was a bit better, my shots would be better.  However, you really do not know how timing is going to play out and you may find that by June you don't have a junco photo.  So, I'm going to always strive to get photos of different birds, but if I have an opportunity to get a better photo of a bird that I already have a photo of, I'm going to go for a better photo.

Here is a blue jay giving me Zoolander's "Blue Steel" look! So I took out my Swarovski ATM 80mm scope with the 25 - 50 zoom eyepiece and my iPhone and tooke 175 photos, 9 of which I'm calling countable for my Big Half Year.

Here's a wild turkey I digiscoped today. My friend Craig on Twitter said that he would only donate for bird photos in focus (unlike the World Series of Birding which asks photographers to provide "identifiable" shots). So I think I'll keep Craig's rule and try to keep things in focus for birds that end up on the official list.

I took 174 photos today and I added 9 species of birds to the list (like the above northern cardinal). I'm keeping an official photo album of all species over at Flickr. I thought I would keep track of how many photos I take and how many photos I use because a lot of people don't realize that photographers delete a LOT of photos.

Got my obligatory house sparrow out of the way. You can donate to the cause and I would recommend not donating per bird, but just putting in a fixed amount.  I anticipate that I will exceed my goal of 250 digiscoped bird species in six months. And it really is a good cause, so many people visit Sax Zim Bog for the birding potential and it would be great to help people find their way to the cool birds...and avoid the scary people.

Here's the link to my Big Half Year Flickr Album and if you are inclined to donate, here's the link for that.

Woodcocks At Biggest Week

Part of the fun of birding at the Biggest Week is I get to see my friend Dale Forbes.  I met him a few years ago in Kazakhstan and since then he's moved on to working full time for Swarovski Optik as a products manager.  This is Dale's first time in North America...so you can imagine he's about to explode getting tons of colorful life birds. Jeff and Liz Gordon are also here pimping the American Birding Association and they tipped us off to some hot all woodcock action over at Maumee Bay State Park.  We hightailed it over there after one of my programs so Dale could get the full on woodcock lekking experience.

Before we started, we could hear an eastern screech-owl trilling outside their cabin. I of course had to experiment getting a shot of said owl with my iPhone.  Considering the only light was a flashlight, this wasn't too bad.

Dale got the full woodcock treatment.  The bird skydanced and timberdoodled several times.  He even landed so close at one point that there was no way for me to digiscope him--but what a thrill, we even heard the little crazy inhale sound before they explode out their peent.  Most of the time though he was in a position to not only get shots like the above with my iPhone and scope but also video:

http://youtu.be/vup4FGTGoAM

Jeff also got a video of the woodcock and the sound quality is much better, though he was using an actual camera with video and not an iPhone...it now kind of makes me want to investigate mics that are available for the iPhone.

Woodcocks are all over, one has been found foraging near the boardwalk and appears to have a nest hidden in the leaves.  Some of us have tried to scope her but she's so well hidden, almost all you see is that eye.

So it's not just all about the warblers here at Biggest Week.

Yellowlegs Video

Here's another video I played around with yesterday trying to stabilize my iPhone 4s up against my Swarovski spotting scope.  This was taken with the 25 - 50 zoom eyepiece (I find for video I get little to no vignetting).  I did some minor adjustments in iMove, mostly a little cropping to take out vignetting in the upper right hand corner). http://youtu.be/dx0x1thf6zo

iPhone Video With A Spotting Scope

Here's an experimental video of a a red-bellied woodpecker (and some red-winged blackbirds) I took using my iPhone 4s and my Swarovski Spotting Scope.  I'm using my 25 - 50 zoom eyepiece on this one and I did do a wee bit of cropping to take out a small amount of vignetting. http://youtu.be/qwh6nhE9FdY

Consolidating My Birding Tools On My Bike

In my effort to find ways to incorporate more exercise into my daily routine and cut back on using my car, I've been bike birding when I can. I've written about it before and how I attach my spotting scope to my bike so I can tote it around.

Since I've been playing around with using my iPhone instead of my SLR for digiscoping, it leaves a bit more room for toting in the backpack. In the past I have had to attach my tripod to the back of the bike with bungee chord because my backpack had the scope and the SLR. But if I leave my SLR at home I can slide the tripod into my backpack. The backpack doesn't close all the way around, but enough that it holds the tripod and scope securely in place, especially when wedged into my bike basket.

Although my bag did have one tragic accident this week.  Our rabbit Dougal decided he wanted to give chewing zippers a try and he's damaged one of the zippers on the outer pocket. Just like a bunny, they wrap you around their little paw and then when you have fallen for them hook, line and sinker they begin their chewing siege on your home. But thanks to Twitter, I have leads on someone who can repair it...can I get fixed before The Biggest Week In American Birding and Point Pelee Fest though? I love that above photo, he looks like he's been caught trying to use my iPad.

Here's a shot I got iPhonescoping while biking last week of a horned grebe and pied-billed grebe while biking the lakes around my home. I like how having a smart phone reduces what I take in the field. My phone has the ability to hold multiple field guides, the ability to submit sightings directly to eBird from the field and is a camera. The only thing it's missing is the ability to use it as a binocular and a bottle of water.

I will say, it's not quite as easy as getting shots with an SLR, it's similar to getting photos with a point and shoot as far as burst mode goes. But most of my photos end up here or on Facebook and Twitter and for simply sharing shots, I like the portability of using my phone instead of a large camera in the field.  When I need serious photos for a book project, I can still take my SLR out in the field, but for general birding or light birding, the iPhone set up works well (although some of my iPhonescoped shots will end up in my next book).

I'm still pining for an adapter to hold my iPhone to my scope.  I had high hopes last week when I was sent a prototype for a planned Kickstarter project for an iPhone adapter.  I knew it was too small to work with my scope, but it looked like it would work for my binoculars.  Alas, my Swarovski ELs are just a hair too wide for it.  But it if you have smaller eye cups, a microscope or telescope, it could work well for you.  I hope their Kickstarter is a success...maybe it will encourage them to work on another adapter that works with modern field optics with large eyepieces.

But, I do hear there are more in the works, so my dream can't be far off of securing my iPhone to my scope.  When that happens, I'll be able to take video and I have a dream of taking off and doing daily birding shows based on what I can get with my scope and phone.

Scope Eyepieces For Digiscoping

I haven't thought about scope eyepieces all that much. Swarovski Optik has three different eyepieces you can choose for your scope a 20-60 zoom, a 25-50 zoom and a 30 fixed. For newer people to the blog, those numbers give you an idea of the scope's magnification or of how close the image is brought to you.  A 20-60 eyepiece can bring the bird 20 to 60 times closer (as opposed to your 8x42 binocular which will only bring the image 8 times closer). I've always been a fan of the zooms, because they can make a real difference in ID when that bird is far away (I got a great look at my lifer saker falcon thanks to my scope's ability to go to 60 power when I was in Israel.  I don't digiscope when I zoom in to 60 unless I really, really need to document something because the photo will be crap.  You lose clarity and brightness when you zoom in and the photos aren't worth it unless you are documenting your state's first record of a hooded crane.  When digiscoping, I always keep it on the lowest magnification.

I almost always use my 20-60 eyepiece.  I like having the option of such a wide range of magnification.  The 20 power magnification gives me a fairly wide field of view but it also helps me a bit with the problem of having the bird too close.  My buddy Clay Taylor kept nudging me to play with the 25-50 zoom eyepiece and the other day, I decided to head out to the feeders at Minnesota Valley NWR.  Their feeding station is always active and I figured I could get some good comparison shots.  When I got there, the feeders were bare.  And I saw the reason why before I could complete the sentence, "That's odd."

A sharp-shinned hawk was perched outside and was so darned cooperative, I got all the footage I needed to compare both eyepieces in less than 15 minutes.

So, here we go and I have to say, I was surprised at my results.  All the video and photos were taken using my iPhone 4s.  Here's a video tutorial followed by photo samples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z5yprCMYrA

I was very happy about the lack of vignetting with the 25-50  zoom when taking video!  Here are some photo comparisons of the sharp-shinned hawk without zooming in with the phone.  This is what it looks like as soon as  you train the iPhone to your scope's eyepiece without zooming in with the phone using the 20-60 zoom eyepiece:

There it is at 20 power and you get a full vignette (the black circle framing the image).  That could be edited out in iPhoto or Photoshop or whatever photo app you use to crop images.

Now, here is the same sharpie on the same perch with the 25-50 zoom eyepiece:

There it is at 25 power and with that eyepiece there's less vignetting.  Again vignetting can be cropped out later, but you get a bigger and better image if you zoom in on the iPhone when you take the photo.  And you do that the same way you enlarge images on your phone with your index finger and thumb.

Now, here are images of the same sharpie with the two different eyepieces and zooming in with the phone:

A pretty good image of a sharp-shinned hawk (especially with it being an overcast day).

Not a lot of difference when you zoom in with the iPhone.  If you want to take video, I highly recommend the 25-50 zoom, it will save you a lot of headaches post production of cropping out the vignetting.  But if you only want to do photos, both eyepieces work really well.

And this was all done by hand holding the iPhone up to the scope--no adapter.

When I think back to what bird photography used to be I marvel at the quality of photos I can get with a phone.

Bentsen Rio Grande State Park Birds via iPhone

South Texas, as always was SO much fun.  Even if you choose to do some casual birding you can still hit all the specialties.  I took a mini break down there over the weekend to hang with a girlfriend and since we had both been there, each day we slept in and let our bodies wake us rather than our alarm clocks and enjoyed the local Mexican restaurants and headed to our favorite parks.

I always have a soft spot for Bentsen Rio Grande State Park. It's the first south Texas park I ever visited in the Rio Grande Valley and where I got most of my Texas specialties like the above green jay (you can get them at most of the parks, but like actors who portray The Doctor, you never forget your first).  Sitting in the balmy 60 - 70 degree weather with my scope and bins really made the tension melt from my bones.

Though walking and biking are fantastic ways to enjoy this Texas park, the bird feeders really deliver. The birds went crazy for this log filled with peanut butter. There was even a clay-colored thrush (or clay-colored robin as some field guides call it). These sometimes zip over the border from Mexico but I haven't seen one since Panama.  Not that I really note that, but I guess I got a new bird for my US list without even trying.

I really clicked with using my iPhone 4s for digiscoping rather than my Nikon D40.  I'm hopeful that by the time spring arrives, I will no longer go out with that camera and only go out with my iPhone...we'll see.  Hand holding has been okay but not as nice as having an adapter.  But since I was having such luck in Texas, I tried taking video at the feeders...I was hand holding but it turned out okay.  Ignore what the people are saying during the oriole part.  They were sitting next to us and talking about a different bird than what you see in the video.

http://youtu.be/A1j4Rvcz0pE

I loved those great kiskadees.  They were "peanut butter catching" at the feeder like they would for aerial insects.  As a matter of fact, because the kiskadees were so fast, they people next to us thought they were grabbing flies attracted to the feeder.  But check out these stills I grabbed from the video:

That's a beakful of peanut butter!

Even the plain chachalacas got in on the peanut butter action...I don't think I saw a single woodpecker come to that feeder.

Besides all of these there were warblers checking it out as well (warblers in January, what a gift to this Minnesota girl). We didn't see them, but many reported that bobcats come to hunt around the feeders too...needless to say, we didn't see squirrels.

Thank you, Bentsen State Park, for a lovely afternoon.

Happy 2012!

Turns out that my first bird digiscoped in 2012 is an American robin and I got it by holding up my iPhone to my scope. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.  Non Birding Bill and I tried to take some time off but with his show, it was a bit more action packed.  When he takes Man Saved By Condiments to New York at the end of February, I'm hoping to come out and visit for a few days, maybe even try a New York Birds and Beers.

I've been trying to figure out what my resolution for 2012 should be.  No matter what I come up with it cannot compare to the smashing success that was 2011 (eat more cultured butter). But I thought this year should be more bird related. So I think I'm going to try and be a better contributor to eBird.  I started off okay with it in 2011 then ended up doing survey work where I wasn't allowed to submit some of my observations (until the project is finished) and got out of the habit.

But as I looked to my BirdsEye App on my phone to see what birds are being reported in my area, I noticed that there are several birding hot spots that haven't had any reports for over a year or in some cases 2 or 3 years.  I think I'm going to do my part to submit observations for those areas to eBird and check out areas that are under reported.  There are a ton of places to watch birds and these places wouldn't have been listed on eBird the app as birding hot spots had there not been some activity going on.  So I'm hoping that I find some habitat and interesting bird observations for 2012.

Again, hope your year is off to a great start.

Palestine Sunbird, Best Hotel Bird Ever?

Between jet lag and jumping right back in to my eagle surveys, my blogging this week has been slower than I expected.  I will say, the upside to my freaky sleep schedule makes getting up 2 hours before dawn easy cheesy.  However, staying up past dinner impossible.  I'm kind curious how tonight will play out, I'm scheduled to be a guest at Camilla Parker Bowls at the Bryant Lake Bowl.  Will I be awake?  Will I make sense?  Will it lead to me sleep table dancing in the middle of the show? I have a post up over at 10,000 Birds about using my iPhone 4s for digiscoping.  I had lots of opportunity to use it and do side by side comparisons while in Israel.  I actually ended up taking more photos with my iPhone than I anticipated and was pleased with the results, especially since I was hand holding it.

This is a Palestine sunbird--we got them within minutes of checking in to our hotel in northern Israel, the Pastoral Kfar Blum.  Periodically one would even perch on the bush just off my hotel balcony.  It's the Middle Eastern version of a hummingbird (although a bit larger, being about the size of a small warbler).  But that long curved beak holds a tongue with bristles at the tip used to get nectar from flowers.  Dynamite birds to tick off from your hotel, plus it's fun to have a bird with such an exotic name on your list.  The above photo was taken with my Nikon D40 through my Swarovski spotting scope.  Since the birds were fairly cooperative, I thought I would see what I could get with my phone:

The bird is in a different position and the light is not the best, but still, not bad at all for me just quickly hand holding the phone up to the scope.  It won't be on the cover of WildBird Magazine, but it's perfect for sending a photo to Twitter, Facebook or email.

My article at 10,000 Birds links to a new adapter developed by Meopta that should make securing my phone to my scope a breeze.  I'm practically salivating to test it out, but if it works well, I may never take my SLR in the field again.  Looks like it won't be available until early next year so in the mean time, I'll keep practicing with my hand held technique.

Fun On My Ground Surveys

Man the final stages of fall migration have set in. Today on my eagle survey I had a flock of tundra swans fly over me. It was really cool because the were headed towards the Mississippi River and I realized that chances were good that the would be included on my aerial waterfowl surveys next week.

There are still plenty of eastern bluebirds around and I find it amazing that I can see the above bird in the field and take a photo and send it to the blog all via the iPhone.