Dang Limpkin

Sometimes, I feel like birds are just toying with me. Birds are not the most cooperative photo objects.  I am fully aware that when  you are tracking down a bird with a spotting scope (or large camera lens) that a bird's instinct is to wonder if the thing staring at it is trying to eat it. But sometimes I find myself in a battle of wits to get a photo and bird is just being a dink.

I've mentioned before how much I love meandering around Viera Wetlands in Florida. The birds there are very chill and you can get some great shots. But even in places where birds are mellow...sometimes they mess with you.

Towards the end of my time in Florida, I was surprised that I didn't find a limpkin. I've had them in Viera reliably and though I do have photos of them, it's always fun to see birds you don't normally get to see.

On my last day near Viera, I was driving around eeking every photo I could of the early evening light. All of a sudden, a limpkin appeared on the side of the road as I creeped past in my rental car. I went well past it, leapt out of the car and snapped a few backlit photos. A documented limpkin, but not the best since the light was behind the bird and not behind me. Viera Wetlands was crowded with bird festival folk and locals who were taking advantage of the light and the birds as well. I wondered if I could walk past the limpkin and get a photo with it in better light.  I got back in my car and reversed, thinking that I would scare the limpkin less if I was in the vehicle, rather than walking past. As soon as I got the car backed up and my scope and camera set up...the limpkin had disappeared back into the vegetation.  How can such a large rail like thing hide so easily?  Grrrr.

So, I waited.  And Waited.  The light was beginning to shift from perfect to a little too dim for photos.  More cars were approaching so I thought I might as well leave the limpkin behind.  After I loaded my scope in the car and slowly drove away...the dang on bird appeared again!!  What a dorkwad.  So, I went back to where the sun was behind it, got the limpkin in the scope and got about 79 photos of this:

The back of it's dang on head! Now is the point where I wondered if the bird was purposely messing with me.  Cars drove past it, some stopped within 15 feet of it and it looked them and then continued about its snail eating business.

Finally, for one brief second, the bird gave me a glance and this is what I got.  This bird wasn't going to make it easy.  I do like this photo because you can see how the upper mandible on its bill curves slightly to the right at the tip. That's apparently an adaptation for wrenching snails out of the shells. But I can add it to my official digiscoping list for the year.

Speaking of which, as of Saturday, I have 53 different species in my Big Half Year photo album and I've already hit the 50% mark for my pledge goal!  Thank you to everyone who is contributing to the effort to get a visitor center built in Sax Zim Bog!

Don't Be Afraid Of Your Delete Key

First. I have to say: Wow! THANK YOU! It is amazeballs that what people have pledged so far! Holy crap! I had no idea what to expect donation wise for my Big Half Year, but I thought $1000 should be doable over 6 months, but I wasn't sure. Well, here it's the end of January and I'm almost halfway to my goal! Thank you guys, so, so much! This is fantastic for the Friends of Sax Zim Bog, they are at 20% of their overall goal and with so many participants, I know we are going to be able to make it and get a welcome center built!

I thought I would set a personal goal of having 31 bird photos posted to my Big Half Year photo album by January 31 and I do! There are still more coming from Florida, but it's pretty amazing that the photos are coming along so well.

Check it out, it's Non Birding Bill actually using a spotting scope! What is he looking at?

A crap ton of herons, ibises and a couple of roseate spoonbills at Merritt Island NWR. Even he had to concede that a roseate spoonbill was cool.  He actually really enjoyed birding in Florida.  Two things helped: one, I didn't force him to do my typical pace and two, the birds were big, obvious and easy to see. Had I started with that instead as a birding introduction instead of brown birds around the college dorm in Terre Haute, Indiana, it may have made a better impression.

As we moved around places like Viera Wetlands, he heard me say more than once, "It's like shooting fish in a barrel!" The birds are so easy in Florida, they are mellow like the above white ibis, used to people and pose in great light. After I would digiscope a few shots with my Nikon, I'd quick switch over to my iPhone to grab a few shots:

It's crazy to me that I live in a day and age that I can just hold my phone up to a spotting scope and take a photo like the one above and then immediately share with hundreds and in some cases thousands of people. We live in a day and age technological miracles and I think that gets lost sometime in the craziness of news and life. Just think about the type of photos you can get that even a decade ago would have been a triumph of the human spirit if you got a grainy image.

With my new Swarovski scope and digiscoping set up, I'm going to have to completely change my photo delete policy. I've always had a pretty liberal delete policy with photos. I know that I have to take hundreds of shots to get some usable ones. I know as a bird blogger, I don't have to have "perfect" shots to post.  It's not like a print quality publication where the photos have to be tack sharp to even be considered.  I've posted some blurry shots if the story behind them was interesting. But with this new set up, I'm getting too many photos in focus. Above is one of hundreds of northern pintail shots that I took to make sure I got a good shot for my Big Half Year album.

But also got some cute ones of pintail pairs dabbling together--a little pair bonding date.

And then there was the pintail male splashing like crazy on his bath. Most of these I would delete, saving a few for a blog post. I kept track of what I took in Florida.  Between my iPhone and my Nikon V1, I digiscoped 6461 photos! So far I have only deleted 2487...that's too many keep.

Part of it is that I digscoped birds I would normally avoid because I'm trying to accumulate species for my fundraising list. But on the other hand, this set up makes getting great shots super easy--look at that boat-tailed grackle shot--it's pretty! But I'm going to fill up my drive too quickly if I am keeping over half the photos that I take on any given trip.

If you are a new digiscoper, that is something to consider.  I've been trying to post how many shots I take at a time to help give new digiscopers an idea of how many photos you can take, just to try and get one or two photos.  It's ok, you can delete them. Pop in a movie on Netflix and then delete away.  Unless you're in Mongolia, most birds you will find again and try to digiscope again.

Fish Crow...man, there is a lot we don't know about this bird

As I'm going through my Florida photos choosing what to add to my official album for my Big Half Year fundraiser, I posted one of my fish crow photos. Some of you who read this blog and are not that into birds are probably wondering, "Hey, Shaz, how can you tell that's a fish crow as opposed the American crow we see all over the US." Honestly? I can't tell them apart by sight myself, but I can by call.  So I took the extra step of getting some video of the above bird so you can hear the call which is a dead give away from the American crow:

http://youtu.be/YpcTqQOjIT4

The call is pretty different.  I don't know all that much about fish crows apart from knowing I'll find them when I'm along the coast in the easter US.  I checked over at Birds of North America Online and my favorite section to check on bird profiles is "Priorities for Future Research." Boy howdy, though this bird is very common along the eastern coastal areas...there's a lot we don't know! And corvids are down right interesting to study.

I was especially surprised about how little we know about the fish crow repertoire. American crows have a crazy vocal repertoire beyond just the "caw" that most of us know and try to tune out.  But they have various types of "caws" and they make weird maraca rattles and can mimic other species (including humans). We don't know that much about the fish crow--exactly how different are they from the American crow?

Graduate students, here's a bird to study...and you could do it some place like Florida!

Picking My Battles With Bird Photos

 

As I do my competition for the Big Half Year, I know this issue is going to come up again and again.  Which photos to count? Above is a very mediocre or what I would call a documentation photo that I got at Pig's Eye Outflow in St Paul this week. There's identifiable common goldeneye in that shot...but would I get a better photo later. Who can say with my crazy schedule and migration. You really never know with birds and this may be as good as it gets goldeneye wise with me.  I know my buddy Craig Nash is insisting that all my photos be in focus to be countable (unlike The World Series of Birding rules). But would the above photo count.

And then I went to Lake Rebecca in Hastings, MN and found a lovely albeit backlit goldeneye. I bided my time and worked my way around the lake to see if I could position myself to have the sun behind me instead of the goldeneye. When I do something like this, I try to walk in a way that the bird doesn't notice. I'll look in the opposite direction of the bird and even make sure that my scope's objective lens isn't facing the bird as I carry it. If I stared at the bird the whole time, the bird might become suspicious as to why I'm staring at it, I'd look like a predator.

I eventually found a better position on the lake...but then the camera flaked out and under exposed the crap out of it. But a few adjustments in the settings and viola:

A reasonable common goldeneye photo and bird number 15 for my Big Half Year fundraiser for a Sax Zim Bog visitor center!

He even found a female goldeneye to hang out with on the lake.

This lake has a large population of mallards and Canada geese (and even a young trumpeter swan) hanging out. It's a popular town activity to bring your kids and a bag of corn or bread and feed everybody. I wonder if the goldeneye notice the mass exodus of waterfowl when a car pulls in and wonder what the fuss is about. These ducks are fish eaters so the corn and bread is wasted on them. But the goldeneye's presence is a good sign for ice fishermen who tempt fate on the frozen-ish side of the lake.

Here's a link to the Flickr  and I cannot say this enough: thank you to everyone who has donated so far. I had absolutely no clue what I'd raise with this thing and seeing it past the $250 mark is an honor. With all the participants, the fund is already at 15%!  That's fantastic--we have until June 30, 2013 to make the goal so to be at this point before the end of January--is fantastic!

Big Half Year Birds

 

I got a trumpeter swan while going for some waterfowl in Hastings, MN for my Big Half Year challenge.  This immature bird was by itself and not with a family group. I didn't see any other trumpeters around.

It did some a bit closer when some people arrived to feed the mallards and I noticed that it appears to have an injury to its upper beak. It was still able to forage underwater with it but I'm curious what happened if that was the reason why it wasn't with other swans.

When I arrived at the parking lot, there was a large flock of mallards sleeping. When I put my car in park, they all got up and came towards me like a zombie hoard. I got a quick video with my phone:

http://youtu.be/Xf2OJkWUGHU

Sorry mallards, I don't feed bread to ducks.  Don't worry, at least 8 other groups arrived in the hour and a half I was there with corn and bread to feed them.  They've got plenty of food...though perhaps similar to fast food in nutrition.

Man, when this Nikon V1 is on, it's really, really on.  So here's another bird for my Big Half Year challenge.

I couldn't resist getting some shots of this bathing mallard. I know I shouldn't anthropomorphize but boy that's a sassy looking bird and he does look like he's having a great time.

So, birds 13 and 14 for the list!

To see my complete list thus far, visit my Flickr set for the Big Half Year.

Big Half Year Bird #12 Wood Duck!

It's taken me quite a bit of practice and today I took 1086 photos and kept 261 of them (less than a dozen of which will end up in the blog).  I'm going to start including how many shots I took and deleted to give folks an idea of how many pictures I'll take in a setting and also to give an idea of how often I'm hitting the Delete Key. I'm still trying to sort out my differences with the Nikon V1.  We've certainly had our growing pains, like today it totally froze in place and I couldn't even turn it off.  I had to eject the battery to restart it and it forgot all of my settings. However, when lighting is right and the bird is in position, I can get shots like this:

This was digiscoped with the Nikon V1, Swarovski ATX scope with 85mm objective lens. It helps that this was one cooperative male wood duck...who seemed glued to the hip of a male mallard (but who am I to judge).

I'm not much of a lister (not that I have anything against people who do list birds, just has never been what floats my boat). However, I do like the challenge of seeing how many different species I can digiscope.  I may keep this going all year.  It gives me more of a purpose in the field (especially since the overall goal is a visitor center for Sax Zim Bog). And again, thank you to everyone who has donated.  As said earlier, I've taken my name out of the running for any prize, I just like bringing attention to this awesome birding area in Minnesota.

To see my complete list thus far, visit my Flickr set for the Big Half Year.

Digiscoping Big Half Year Bird #10

So yesterday I posted that I got a shot of bird #11 for my Big Half Year, but I neglected to post bird #10:

Bird #10 was a female pileated woodpecker digiscoped at Minnesota Valley NWR using the new Swarovski ATX scope and my iPhone 4s (no adapter, I handheld it for this shot). Not bad, especially since I had to angle myself in a way to avoid window glare and all the dirt on the window.

Also, I see that people have pledge $181 so far! THANK YOU! I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  And again, I don't care if yo pledge for me or pledge for someone else, the goal is that we get the funds for a visitor center to be built in this unique birding habitat and help conserve more land up there. Thank you, that was a fun thing to see when I checked it today.

You can see my gallery of all my birds thus far at Flickr.

Tryin' To Get That Digiscoping Feelin' Again

So in an effort to get to know my new digiscoping set up better, I keep stopping out here and there to test out different settings.  Today...I had my ISO way too high and ended up with some arty shots that I kind love:

I love how eerie these bleached out crows look--something only a photographer would say when most of their photos are bad...they're ARTY!

This kind of looks like a drawing.  I did get the ISO down to 100 and got a more reasonable shot (and bird #11 for my Big Half Year).

And this would be my first official photo with my new digiscoping set up.  Once I get used to this system, I think we will get along fine. I've taken just under 800 photos with my set up and this is the first one that I thought was good enough for the blog.  I write that because I meet so many people who get a digiscoping set up and after 16 pictures, never touch it.  It takes several shots to get used to all the bells and whistles on your camera.  You should go out and practice on starlings, chickadees, Canada geese to get a feel for the system, figure out what adjustments you need for different light settings, that way you'll be ready when you go warbler watching or on that trip to Central America. I didn't expect to take over 700 hundred photos to get used to the system, but this camera has burst mode so I ended up with more shots than I bargained for even when lightly pressing the button.  But when  you have a set up, take a crap load of photos and get on a first name basis with your delete key.  That is the number one step to getting better photos: PRACTICE!

I'm desperately trying to get this in before we head to Space Coast next week.  I want a lot of these settings to be second nature so I can grab spectacular shots of spoonbills, ibises, wood storks and limpkins.

New Swarovski Digiscoping Set Up With the ATX

I had such high hopes for the start of 2013.  I am back freelancing, I set some minor digiscoping goals for the blog, I downloaded apps on my iPhone and iPad to synch things and make sharing links via all my social medias and easy cheesy process.  I spent the week between Christmas and New Years getting my collective crap in order. Then, I got a new spotting scope! And the new scope's digiscoping adapter doesn't work with my Nikon D40.  Then my five year old MacBook Pro had some screen issues.  For no apparent reason and with incredibly unpredictable timing, the screen would go black.  I found a temporary fix that worked about one out of twelves times that I tried it, but it was not an ideal situation for answering work email, blogging and in some cases sharing links.

I was irritated and fascinated.  It's amazing to me how much my laptop is like a car and breaks down at the least convenient moment, like when I am in a tiny town in Missouri with no hope of an Apple store within 50 miles. I really hoped I could do some patch fixes until February because I didn't want to deal with a new laptop and new camera at the same time but that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.

So! Here is what my old digiscoping set up involved:

A Swarovski ATM spotting scope with a 20-60 zoom eyepiece, a DCA digiscoping adapter and a Nikon D40.  A trusty system that has seen me through several states, countries and even survived a broken camera battery door.  I was very pleased with this setup, would have preferred a smaller camera that also did video, but at the end of the day, loved what this system did for me.

Over the last year I have also incorporated an iPhone 4s into my digiscoping routine with my Swarovski ATM, DCA adapter and an iTelligent adapter.  I am fairly adept at hand holding my iPhone up to the scope to get decent still images, but at the end of the day, to do video, you really need something to secure it to the scope if you want to take video.

Then Swarovski sent me the new ATX scope with the new TLS APO adapter...and as said earlier, that adapter does not work with the Nikon D40.

The TLS APO adapter is designed to go directly on the camera body, so you take off the camera lens to attach the adapter.  With this particular Nikon, it thinks that you do not have a lens attached and refuses to take any photos.  I had to get a new camera.

I talked to my friends at Swarovski, checked in with digiscoping guru Mike McDowell to see how he was using the new scope and what didn't work and what did work.

Then I took my scope, my adapter and my budget to National Camera Exchange in Golden Valley, MN (there is a difference in customer service between the various locations and in my experience, that one is the best.  Ask for Curt or Kevin). I cannot stress enough that when you have a new scope and you want to find a camera, take it in with you to find your camera.  Play with them together, get a feel for how they will work together.  My favorite camera was the Nikon V2.  However, after purchasing a fancy new laptop, it was not in my budget.  Since the Nikon V2 had just come out, the Nikon V1 is discontinued and you can get the camera body right now for $350 to $399.  It's a steal.  It's compact, it does video and it works with the new system.

Here is my new rig: the Nikon V1, a Nikon T ring, a Nikon FT 1 adapter, (a crazy, somewhat pricy piece of equipment that has electronics in it but tells the camera that there is an actual lens on the camera), the TLS APO adapter and the ATX 85 mm scope.

I'm still learning how to get my digiscoping mojo on.  I took 549 photos with it the other day and none of them are worth posting in the blog because I'm still trying to get my settings figured out.  FYI, you cannot use every mode the V1 offers with the TLS APO.  I cannot use the Smart Photo Selector Mode or the Motion Snap Shot Mode but I can use general camera and movie mode which is what I wanted.

And after the laptop and new camera, I am now setting my check card in some ice to cool off.

Some of you may be wondering what I'm doing with my old spotting scope since I now have a new one...well, folks, I'm going to give it away! That's right, I'm going to have a contest coming up soon and the rules are going to even the playing field.  I'll announce details very soon, but the contest is geared so that anyone could enter, no matter the birding ability.  It has nothing to do with getting the best photo of a bird (if you can do that, you certainly don't need my scope). So keep your eye pealed, you could win my old Swarovski ATM 80mm scope!

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.