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lonestranger

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Posts posted by lonestranger

    Birdie

    in General Birding Topics

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Snake Fingers said:

     Just curious. Why would one make four blank guesses instead of just guessing plausible birds four times? 

     

    1 hour ago, Birds are cool said:

    My thoughts as well. 

     

    1 hour ago, Charlie Spencer said:

    I can't speak for @lonestranger but for this bird, I had no plausible guesses.

    I'm more interested in correctly identifying the bird than in getting a good score.  Let's say I see the first image and can get the right family; for example, a warbler.  I'll make one guess to confirm I'm in the neighborhood; I try Pine Warbler and get a yellow square.  On the second photo, I'm no closer to knowing the bird than I was on the first.  Since I don't care about my score, I'll make a blank guess instead of randomly trying another warbler species.  Ditto the third image; still no better clue.  Repeat until I can make a semi-educated guess or I run out of tries.  I want to be able to identify the bird on my own, and don't care how many red squares it takes.

    What @Charlie Spencer said. Plus the fact that sometimes I just get lazy and don't want to think too hard on these puzzles. 😉

    • Like 4

    Birdie

    in General Birding Topics

    Posted

    32 minutes ago, Quiscalus quiscula said:

    I accidentally pressed enter once.

    That's a mind over matter issue. If you don't mind, it don't matter. 😄

    I deliberately made four blank guesses hoping for a definitive clue that I couldn't find. By the time I guessed my original suspicion, I didn't have enough guesses left to narrow it down. Oh well. 🤷🏼‍♂️  I don't mind, so it don't matter. 😉

    • Like 4

    Duck and or shorebird gear

    in General Birding Topics

    Posted

    I have never kayaked before but I have a fair bit of experience with photography from a canoe. As previously suggested, everything gets tethered to the canoe before starting out. I use a Pelican Case for my gear, which is locked closed until the moment I want to take a picture, and it gets closed back up as soon as the photo is taken, I never paddle with my gear exposed to the risk of water. The only time I put the camera strap on the camera is when I'm going out on the water, that’s so the camera is tethered to me when it's not sealed in the tethered case. For water level shots, I take advantage of the articulating LCD screen on the camera, like @Charlie Spencer described (but without the need to invert the camera), and hang the camera over the edge and as close to the water as possible. Of course this is something I would only do on flat water, if there is any kind of wind creating waves, even small ones, there's a good chance I wouldn't even take the camera gear out in the canoe with me. It's not that I worry about my gear getting wet in rough water, it's just not worth the frustration of trying to stabilize the camera when the canoe starts rocking. I have never tried using a floating blind but I have been successful using the canoe to float around the shorelines of small lakes. Much like moving through the woods, if you move slowly and in a non-threating manner on the water, birds will be much more tolerant of you, whether you're camouflaged or not. Tying the canoe to a fallen tree, or something similar, and just floating stationary for a while and letting the birds come to us was almost always a part of our canoe outings, too. Having said that, I think my best water level shots have been when I was sitting on a chair in the water with my camera mounted to my anchored tripod. The camera was still a foot or more above the waterline and the photos don't compare to those of braver photographers who get right down to water level, but the added stability of the tripod resulted in sharper images than I could have achieved by hanging my camera over the edge of the canoe.

    Just rambling thoughts, hopefully some of its relevant to the discussion.

    • Like 3
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