millipede

Seems like I was on the right track for most of them. As far as splitting things up goes, I have mixed feelings. I'm not breaking any rules. There's advice to not do more than 5 species in a post but, this is only 3 or 4 species, all from the same trip. I feel like making multiple posts would be more work.. Then, I already had this post and it's not like you can edit or delete your own post after the fact. So... eh... And you really want me coming at you with like 5 posts all at once for the same trip and same species(plural)? Anyway, if I NEED to make a new post for any of these, could someone take a look and just tell me which photos are most important? I have a good enough estimate on how many sesa and lesa sandpipers I saw... one or two pectorals(didn't add them here, didn't need to), and while there's multiple pictures of a white-rumped, I'm just putting 1 in my report as I don't know if I had more than one... So, all I want to know is if there's anything I missed(species wise) and any other thoughts or confirmations on potential western sandpipers... which photos are needed, if I were to make a new post looking for questionable birds or westerns?

May 16th, 2023. (Actually have a ton more photos, wish I had a second set of eyes on every one, but these will do.) I hope to one day get better at identifying these in the field. What I do if the lighting isn't great, etc, is just take pictures and sort it out later. It's getting easier to do that with books now but I like confirmations. 🙂 Semipalmated sandpiper? Dark legs, thicker not so curved bill, wings don't project beyond the tail... 1. 2. sesa? 3. Sesa or wrsa? Bad angle. Actual white rump there or, just bad angle? 4. All three sesa? Just different plumages? 5. Mostly sesa? I feel like the bird on the far right LOOKS bigger, straight-ish bill, almost looks like baird's but, the wing projection doesn't seem to go beyond the tail... 6. Also mostly sesa, with lesa mixed in? western or white-rumped? 7. 8. I thought these two were WESA until another picture of the same birds showed the leg color better. lesa? And I'm seeing that western wouldn't have that much reddish brown towards the end of the wings, and they'd have a lighter face. (I'll get the hang of these, some day) 9. Not sure what I want to make this one. What's the defining marks to ID this bird? 10. Wilson's phalaropes: If you could scan these images to help me count them or pick out anything else of interest, that would be good. 🙂Maybe just add up the most number of males and females... [ 11. Potential white-rumped sandpiper on the left? Thin bill, looks like some color at the base of it? 12. White rumped? 13. Poor focus 😞 14. This is definitely bigger than the least behind it... 15. Same birds:

Fun... I saw the least ID and instantly agreed because they LOOK like peeps and have yellowish legs. But then I saw the other comments... My thoughts are, well, you're right... But, man, those bills look too short for pectoral to me and, the pectorals I'm used to seeing, the bills are a bit lighter with a very much more noticeable two tone look. These bills just look all wrong to me. But, that's just my limited experience perhaps? Picture quality or lighting? I just looked on all about birds and, I feel the wings of each in the photos they provide would also confirm pectoral over least. Least, at least (pun intended) in their pictures, have a white line through the darker area of the wing in flight... these birds don't match that... and the pectoral in one picture on that site shows something of a white line at the leading edge of the wing, which would match these birds. I wont remember any of this... I'll still look at size and bill size and color when looking for my pectorals here, I'm sure... so I doubt I'll remember what I just wrote... not to mention, in flight they're just so much harder. Helps when the pictures are at least this good...

This bird had me real confused. Clay-colored sparrow does pass through here sometimes but I don't study or see them enough to remember. In the field, that wasn't even on my mind because of the bold markings, I was almost thinking lark sparrow. But now I see, comparing online, this may be a clay-colored... bill fits that better... but the black on the chest... I have other pictures as well, but this sure was a weird looking bird. I'll post more pics if needed, and I have some shorebirds to post but, I need sleep first. Just wanted to get this one up...

5/9/2023 I went searching for a limpkin that was spotted yesterday morning. I missed the last sighting of it by 10 minutes... People are speculating it's still there so I may chase again today... we'll see. Don't need it on my life or state list but, would be a great county bird to add. 🙂 Saw a couple shorebirds there... It's hard to judge the bill but everything else is saying lesser yellowlegs to me. and how often do you see a bird in the field and you're sure it's something pretty interesting and different... and then you get home and look at pictures and, oh, it's just a ______? On the way to try and find the limkin, I stopped at a farm pond that often has interesting birds on it. I saw this bird a ways off... shorebird... BIG bill... looked like a BIG bird... Must have been cleaning itself and puffing itself up in the process because, it looked MUCH bigger than a yellowlegs, overall size as well as just the bulkiness of it. Thought for sure I had something interesting... but, pictures tell me all I had was a greater yellowlegs. A fun bird to see but, different than what I was seeing in the binoculars. HA This was tiny compared to the yellowlegs so, peep sp? Compared to the GRYE, these were almost not even noticed. Just much smaller, it seemed. But, they look like LEYE to me.

that is what I meant... does it look like wingbars on this bird? faint as it may be? I think the feet would be hard to judge. Again, even on all about birds, the feet aren't the same in every photo for the warbler, some are definitely dark enough to get confused. And the bill... IF I had been looking at that, I probably wouldn't have leaned towards vireo to begin with... But, I wasn't looking at that at the time... AND... you'll often see either species higher up in the trees instead of hanging out like this was. So, outside of the bill and the feet(back to my main question) are we just left with GISS? to help ID these?

That seems like it might be another tricky one to pick up on in the field... especially after looking at some pictures on all about birds, where some of the TEWA examples sure had darker feet.

So, I was feeling a little proud of myself at first but, then, not so much. Yesterday(NW Arkansas) there was a small bird at the bird bath... my kids were looking at it. It stuck around long enough for me to go to the living room and look, go back to my room, and put the lens on my camera, and then get some shots. I don't think I've seen either species be so cooperative before. At first I was thinking vireo... and, I was sort of proud of myself(helped that it was cooperative) as I analyzed the features. The cap would have been a lot more noticeably dark if it were a red-eyed vireo... a good amount of yellow on the bird... picture doesn't do it justice how greenish it was on the back. I double checked the field guide, certain it wasn't warbling vireo... (this kind of studying is how I learn best, really) and I see that the eye line goes all the way to the bill which of course would help rule out warbling vireo... so, I was pretty settled on philadelphia, having had one earlier in the day that was calling so clearly(just the whine calls) that even Merlin got it quickly... Anyway... I was sure, PHVI... But then later on I reminded myself(Don't remember how) of the tennessee warbler. So, to the field guides... This is one of those comparisons that just could drive a person batty. This bird didn't vocalize at all so that frustrated things. After looking more carefully at the bill, and then, I can't tell... do you see "wing bars?" I decided it was probably TEWA. Feel free to tell me which but my real question here is, with a silent bird, given such good looks as I had, what am I looking for to make the ID easier next time??? Bills are difficult for me to judge in the field unless I have a side by side comparison. That feature would have been pretty difficult for me to base an ID on with this bird. I mean, just looking at pictures online, I'm not finding that easy to judge... without a reference next to it, REALLY hard. I have other angles of this bird as well but this is a nice profile shot. The bill is looking more TEWA to me now but, again, in the field I don't know that I could have been sure. Next time I have a bird sitting in the open for me to stare at, especially if it's silent, what am I looking for to aid in ID?

Almost 2 years later... I'm back on this subject. The Birding in Massachusetts group now has over 20k members. There are a few really good photographers... a few of them go to the heron rookery what seems like every day. LOTS of photos. I have to remind them to post any info they can on the distance to and/or lens used when photographing any nests. Most of the time, the birds look relatively relaxed so I don't worry about it too much. But the one moderator I have messaged me early this morning thinking we need to revisit the idea of just banning all nest photos. We've been seeing owl nest photos, osprey, ravens, and more. I wish it was easier to really judge how far people are. Maybe I should insist on a non-cropped photo along with the cropped photos to give us a better feel of distance? I hate the idea of outlawing all those photos but, people are OBSESSED with nest photos right now. I can't really blame them but... eh...

I was going to say that... Gotta love the birds that are similar... Saw a couple people photographing birds yesterday and they kept saying GBH... I didn't have the heart to "correct" them with GBHE... You should see my notebooks when I first started and all the codes I made up. ha... And thanks all...

It sometimes really upsets me how much Canada geese can very in size... I mean, it's pretty drastic sometimes... so when you have a big flock with all sorts of obvious size differences, it's just frustrating... And don't get me started on how even the bill can be a bit variable. Sometimes it's obvious and other times, I just don't know. Was looking at at least 62 geese the other day and the sizes were frustrating. I thought maybe there'd be a cackling in there so I just tried to photograph as many as I could. Looking at the pictures... well these three pictures, two are definitely of the same bird, they were sequential in the photos... the other might still be the same bird, or a separate one. Hard to say. This bird was smallish, smaller just a bit than some of the smaller canada geese... but the bill also looks smaller to me in comparison with the other birds... But I'm not sure I feel certain enough because the size differences weren't extreme... Those small canadas just have to make things complicated... The bird on the left here... I feel like it's profile is also a bit lower to the water... Same bird on left, just a different photo Bird on the right this time, the bill I'm just not sure of... seems small... but hard for me to judge here...

I wrote a reply but, am changing it. So... yes... technically. Check out this link that explains what lens mounts you can use on the T5. This article says you can use an EF lens BUT, it will be "zoomed in" There's an explanation in there. The T5 uses EFS lens mount. They both fit, but, are different. https://www.natetorresphotography.com/best-lenses-for-canon-rebel-t5/ So when you're comparing lenses, ideally you want to look for EFS. Some of the brands like Sigma and Tamron make specific lenses where they make different versions for different lens mounts. Hmmm... I'm not seeing a lot of options when I search specifically for the EF-S mount for lenses. Hopefully a more experienced photographer can explain what it would do to use an EF lens... Or maybe the link I provided above will explain it. I'd start there. It would fit, and work... but, I didn't study on what it would do... Now I'm curious... I may read about it myself in a bit. Ha... Editing to add... that link I provided mentions the sigma as a good lens to use for the camera... So... yeah.

Hobb's state park in Northwest Arkansas is a pretty cool place to visit with a lot of land and parts of Beaver Lake. Beaver Lake being one of many man-made lakes in the state. I feel like every lake in Arkansas is the result of a dam. Anyway, Hobbs has very regular events for people to attend. Some are fun. Birds and Breakfast, for instance... They have breakfast snacks and there are people outside mist netting songbirds. They'll weigh and band and such and then they bring them in bags inside where a demonstration is going on. They'll talk about birds and show them off an then have kids help release them out the back door. At least, they were the last time I attended. My kids loved it. Anyway, Every year around this time they have eagle watch tours. I found one this year where the weather was cold but, decent for wind and sun... and signed up. $15 to get a short little bit of photography tips and then out to see eagles. I of course wasn't there just for eagles. I wanted all birds. Target species included common loon, goldeneyes, and horned grebes. Didn't get the loons but got everything else. And the eagles... had at least 4 individuals, one pair for sure, the other two may or may not have been a pair. The pair we were sure was a pair included some views that were just amazing... and the photos I got... better than I'd expect, from me anyway... I have a canon t7 and have been using kit lenses til not too long ago when I splurged on a Sigma 150-600mm lens. I do not regret the purchase. I feel like at least a coupe of my pictures almost look like a photographer took them. Almost. Anyway...

you are critical with your responses, often... and here. You're telling me how I should feel or what I should do. This was not asked for. I specifically stated I was venting. I wasn't crying or demanding justice. Just expressing some frustration that others in my community have expressed. People shared their opinions. I want it to be over but, no, someone else has to have the last word. No buts? I really don't like it when people tell me how to think, feel, or post.

I apologize if this is true... except in that, Birds are cool wrote just a few words. To then be called out and criticized in that way in a topic they didn't start? Seems personal. Seems wrong. Birds are cool wasn't making the complaints I was, they simply said "it happens" Anyway, there are times I wish this was like facebook and I could turn off comments on my own post. I vented... I stand by some of my frustration, even though I understand some of the arguments. My vent is valid. The arguments of others are valid. Let's move on.