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!

Birdchick Podcast #129: Birds, We Talk About Birds

Stuff that happened while Non Birding Bill and I were out of town: Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Black Swamp Bird Observatory launched a website to try and connect young birders called Young Birders Network.

Ornithologist forced to participate in reality tv show.

Some gruesome but awesome images of a lanner falcon and chanting goshawk...that does not end well for at least one of a flock of turtle doves.

The American Birding Association announced the 2013 Bird of the Year and Robert Mortensen of Birding is Fun fame made a hilarious video.  This man knows how to commit:

Visit the official ABA Bird of the Year website: http://aba.org/boy/

And this video led to this:

Screen Shot 2013-01-14 at 8.55.37 PM

And then this:

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Sometimes, there are just plain weird projects on Kickstarter and it may be best to quietly navigate away from the page.

The Hitler Hoary Redpoll video...(man, if you're not a birder, that probably sounds weird).

You can use a pigeon to deliver your mail...but not feel guilty about it!

And you think you have a crappy job...

Birdchick Podcast #129

Birdchick Podcast: FAKE for when we are too busy to podcast...

For when we can't podcast or a good primer to give you an idea for what our podcast is like.

Birds and Electrocution

Well I had two very interesting things hit my inbox that are somewhat related. One is kind of a gruesome photo but fascinating:

The above photo was taken by Lili Taylor (woman after my own heart, she takes pictures of dead stuff). In the photo, we have a dead squirrel and a dead raptor on top of a transformer. Based on the tail feathers, it looks to be a hatch year red-tailed hawk. It's a shame, the bird graduated from the nest, figured out how to hunt down tough quarry like a gray squirrel and then landed to eat it only to be electrocuted on a transformer.

I also got a notification that he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee have released their updated guidance document Reducing Avian Collisions with Power Lines: State of the Art in 2012. This manual is supposed to identify "best practices and provides specific guidance to help electric utilities and cooperatives, federal power administrations, wildlife agencies, and other stakeholders reduce bird collisions." So it seems there are things that can be done to prevent this and it's up to the power company to take that initiative to make adjustments. I think in this case of the hawk on the transformer that you could try and call the power company to alert them so they could at least remove it and encourage them to maybe put a cover over it to prevent further electrocutions.

It's fascinating to follow some of those links. The APLIC offers workshops on this subject and you can even download a copy of an Avian Protection Plan (a working document that states with the risks are to birds and how to mitigate that). On page 30 it gets into construction guidelines.

The document points out what the risk is to a bird landing on the transformer but also points out way that could fix it easily:

The hard part is tracking down the power company responsible for the transformer and getting them to come out and fix it. It's in their best interest to do so, they could be fined or something like this could lead to a costly power outage.

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.

Yes, There Were Birds In That Photo

I posted this photo earlier asking if there was a bird in this photo.  There are actually two horned larks in this photo. Can't see them? That's because their camouflage is doing its job.

I tried circling them so you could see how close you came to finding them...but that bird in the middle is still hard to make out.

Here' s a zoom in of the middle bird. It's back is facing my scope, but the head is turned slightly to the right and you can just make out the mask.

It's incredible how well camouflage works on these ground feeding birds. I'm not sure what all they are finding to eat as they scurry the plowed fields but it must work well for them.

I did have to chuckle.  When I posted this on Twitter, one of the first answers came from @Darth who replied with this:

Well played, @Darth, well played.

Is There Really A Bird In This Photo?

This isn't from my New Year's resolution, this a photo from a couple of weeks ago when I would doing a survey in December. Now...is there a bird in this photo and if there is...what species?