Chris Clem

Cooper's Hawk, Mojave Desert, April 2021

Morning Dove Mojave desert 2/20/2019

Common Raven in the Mojave Desert. Just delivering some (what look like Coco Puffs?) to the bird bath for a little soaking before taking them to the nest about 1/2 mile away. Birdbath Raven - Made with Clipchamp.mp4

Loggerhead Shrike chasing a Kangaroo Rat in the Mojave Desert. July 2019

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Yes editing software is amazing....but should we really be doing that or should we edit it to show what the seen really looked like?

Water lines on a river are not straight and there is no reason to make them straight. Now if it were a horizon line ....yes you would straighten it. But in this case I would leave it as is.

It seems to me I am seeing way to many over edited photos, over sharpened, over saturated, too bright etc. Once they get that surreal looked to them....it's time to back off the sliders. Opinions will very but that is my take.

Mojave Desert @ rural Yucca Valley. From 3 days ago. Not sure I can ID this....maybe a Warbler? bird bath Warbler.mp4

One thing to note with cleaning up audio for those who might want it give it a go. The de-noising or de-clicking, hum/hiss reduction etc is it works really good on Wav or Flac files. It is just a disaster to try to cleanup any of the space saving files like MP3 or AAC etc......ONLY use Wav. files for recording audio.

I think it is cool that you are trying to do some recording. I have been doing audio for most of my life, but have never recorded birds. I took your recording into my app for VinylStudio and checked your levels. After setting the volume level by the VU meters, it normalized at -4.4 db. I'm sure VinylStudio is overkill for bird recordings but it works for any audio. I also de-noised the recording. Don't know if this will play, but here it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF5yaFTZSs0

Eastern Phoebe ?

I couldn't get a clean shot of this Black-Throated Gray Warbler in the Mojave Desert.....I did try, but it wasn't happening. A lifer for me.

An awful threw the window shot of a Hooded Oriole. Only showing because it is a lifer for me.

A Hummingbird Moth in the Mojave Desert.

I guess the the fact that they sometimes disappear is not that odd, but summer is the one time they are always around in large numbers. They would normally come to my waterhole every morning and every evening. It just seems that in a dry year (and it has been) they would stay close to the waterhole which is full all year long.

Living in the Mojave Desert Gambel's Quail is a bird I see every day. It is common to see new family's in Jul/Aug....but not this year, I have only seen One family the whole summer. In fact I have only seen one lonely Quail in the entire month of August. So.....where are they? It is not like they can just move to a area since they can't fly more then about 50 foot at a time...What do you think?

Mojave Desert Great-Horned Owl. I pretty sure this the same Owl in my avatar photo from last year. Here he is this morning at the Waterhole.

Great Horned Owl, Mojave Desert.....sleeping

From our local paper July 7 2022. They say this is the first time a Zone Tailed Hawk has been spotted in the park.

Mojave Desert ....Le Conte's Thrasher feedings also look pretty innocent in real time because it happens so fast. But looks a little dicey when you start to photograph them.

I like the hand drawing idea. Of course you would be up against the computer software folks who can crank these out by the bucket loads. Not meaning to discourage you at all. Here is one I did in my photo editor (PhotoScape X). It probably looks a little too busy for a coloring book but it only takes about 5 minutes to complete.

Mojave Desert Coyote.

From the Mojave Desert.

Wild Cottontail Rabbit with 1 blue eye and one brown eye. He seems to be able to see out of both eyes, but the blue eye has no pupil. I have a feeling this not a good sign.