What am I doing

Am I a wildlife photographer or a birder?

I find myself falling into the trap of comparing myself to what I see online and feeling like I’m neither.

I post many “photos” of birds with my eBird reports; when viewing other eBirder reports, it seems like most people don’t add photos. I know what scrub jays and yellow-breasted warblers look like now, why am I compelled to add a boring photo to my reports? I think I’m adding photos to my reports as a form of reinforcement. A definite case I feel like adding a photo is when I have any doubt – I think it’s a ( for example ) pelagic cormorant – and eBird might agree – but the eBird police might see the photo and determine it is some other cormorant variant.

So, I continue to add photos to many of my common bird sightings and question my birding ability. (One thing I do is rate my purely ID photos 1-star in hope of ensuring they are skipped from other people viewing them.)

And then there’s the whole “wildlife photographer” issue – it seems like there are a multitude of fantastic wildlife photographers online. I compare their shots to most of my drab photos and question my abilities. But I do recognize a few things that can separate the best wildlife photographers and myself – they often spend hours in the field at a single location waiting for a photo. I am always moving. They tend to shoot early in the morning – my 5-6pm birding is just not as conducive to the best light or subjects. At least this is the story I’m telling myself.

Regardless, April has started out OK – I’ve recently added two new lifers and have had some nice encounters. The encounters are always on the other side of the field I’m standing in, but one day I’ll be on the right side and get a killer shot. (The photos of the encounters are heavily-cropped )

#168 – Red-necked Duck

#167 – Pigeon Guillemot

Here are some recent shots from the first week of April, including an encounter between a white-tailed kite and a red-tailed hawk and a bald-eagle being a bitch to an osprey. Oh yeah… the osprey are back!