lonestranger

Did you get an external flash unit with your new DSLR purchase or have you been using the camera's built-in flash? Either way, I agree with @The Bird Nuts, your use of flash makes things look unnatural. When used properly, fill flash can turn an average shot into an eye popping photo, using flash as the primary light source seldom produces pleasing images though and usually just ruins the picture, in my opinion. As far as rating your photos go, if you start off giving yourself 5 star ratings on all your photos, you're bound to be disappointed when the rating has nowhere else to go but down.

*sigh* No one ever notices that I can fart in technicolor.

Okay, what aisle are the House Sparrows in?

If you click on the link above the photo, it will take you to the photo with the exif data right below the image.

My take on the ABA rules was that birds caught in the nets wouldn't be countable, but after they were released and shaken off the effects of being captured, they would once again become countable. You can't count the birds immediately after release, but once they're back to normal behaviour you can count them. It may not be that simple, but that was my take on it. I don't count birds so my spin on this doesn't really matter, but if I saw bird X at a banding station and was pretty sure that I would never get the chance to see/count that species ever again, if it was possible I think I'd make the effort to get that bird on my list, even if it meant trying to track it for a few minutes after being released until I was comfortable that the bird was no longer under the influence of being confined. Admittedly, MY comfort level in making a call in that situation might not measure up to someone else's comfort level in the same situation. That same comfort level might also be influenced by the value of the bird wanted for the list, too. Having said all that, I wonder if the best approach might be to focus on the birds before they get caught in the nets.

Male and female Mallard, heavily cropped from the same shot taken back in 2012.

Great footage, @James Chagares. I am envious, both of your experience with the Mallards, and the gear you used to record it.

I told you we needed to stay in PERFECT step if we were going to trick them into thinking there's only one of us.

I thought I had stashed a few sunflower seeds under the bark right here, but I don't remember them being buried this deep.

I'm not sure if I'm interpreting it the way it was intended but I took it to mean, Shape of the primaries is diagnostic. I'm not sure if that's the elaboration you were looking for, but thought it might help by putting a different spin on the wording. I could be wrong though.

This may not be the Whatplant forum but the plants that birds frequent for food is very much a topic worthy of the Whatbird forums. ?

I used the word "only" because my 2TB external hard drive cost me $120 when I bought it. If price is an issue, USB flash drives are considerably cheaper and even come in 2TB sizes for under $40. Not sure about the quality but they're definitely a cheaper alternative.

Perhaps Black-faced Canary, or Black-throated Canary? I can't find anything on Black-fronted Canary so I am guessing it's a typo/brainfart for one of the other Canaries, maybe?

I'm not one to take advise from since I seem to be in the same boat but I'll share my thoughts. I don't know if I have hit the 100,000 mark yet, but I know that I had over 50,000 photos from just one of the four cameras I have used in the past 15ish years since I first picked up a camera. I have filled a 2TB external hard drive, that back up thingy, with photos and am in need of another storage device. I could go through old photos and delete those that aren't worth keeping and probably end up with 1.75TB of new storage space but I am a packrat with my photos and hang on to the old garbage for some stupid reason. Since I haven't gotten around to buying a new storage device yet, I have resorted to deleting some of the recent photos on my computer so I can make room to process(look at) the newer photos that keep accumulating on the cameras' memory cards. I keep wondering about my method because I seldom review old photos on the external storage drive because I usually keep a copy of the real keepers stored on the computer and online, so I wonder why I bother to keep the old ones if I don't even look through them anymore. There's only been two occasions that I can recall where I went back to the original photo on the backup drive and reworked the photo in post processing. Those two occasions don't seem like reason enough to keep thousands and thousands of photos, but I'm keeping them anyway. I think at this point in the game, sorting through my photos and organizing them isn't really an option, and I have already regretted deleting recent photos when I had mistakenly resized a group of images to save disk space and deleted the originals before I had cropped the images, so I think I will just lay out the money and get another external 2TB storage device and keep ALL my photos, the good, the bad, and the ugly. ? I just looked to see the current prices and the 4TB version of my 2TB external hard drive is only $115cdn with 1TB Solid State Drives running around $200cdn.

Typically people have been waiting at least two days before picking a winner, often announcing a cutoff time (eg: later tonight/tomorrow morning) prior to declaring a winner so that people get one last chance to come up with a caption.

Don't you recognize the inside of a lens cap when you see one?

I finally got a shot of birds flying past the moon, but it's kind of disappointing... So I made one out two photos that were taken a few seconds before and few seconds after the above photo.

Friday night moon Saturday night moon.

Spread your wings all you want, it's not considered flying until you let go and get airborne .

I can't help with sexing your bird but that is a great photo. Not just the dragonfly, but the bird is pretty cool too. ?

I wonder how many others can relate, but it seems like I am either hunting for a needle in a haystack or trying to select the best blade of grass in that haystack. ? I'm either trying to find one of very few photos of a species in a collection of thousands and thousands of photos, or as is the case this week, I am trying to select one photo out of thousands I can easily find. Here's two photos that while not great photos, combining them together helped make my choice a little bit easier.

I agree with @Seanbirds, there's no reason to think that you wouldn't see a Golden Eagle over a body of water. They might not fly over HUGE bodies of water but they're not likely to avoid flying over a body of water just because that body of water is in it's flight path. Taking into account that they do hunt fish as part of their diet, and also hunt Seals and birds like Swans and Cranes, it's reasonable to say that they do fly over water. A quote from All About Birds with the last sentence confirming that they catch fish... Food Golden Eagles prey mainly on small to medium-sized mammals, including hares, rabbits, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and marmots. Black-tailed jackrabbits are a key prey species throughout much of their range. These eagles are also capable of taking larger bird and mammal prey, including cranes, swans, deer, and domestic livestock. They have even been observed killing seals, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, coyotes, badgers, and bobcats. In addition to live prey, Golden Eagles often feed on carrion, following crows and other scavengers to a meal. They also catch fish, rob nests, and steal food from other birds.

I can't say that I've noticed it in Northern Flickers, but I have noticed young Downy Woodpeckers getting red on their forehead before it comes in on the back of the crown so maybe it's a woodpecker thing.