northamericanbirder

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Tree Swallow, lining up perfectly with the shadow of its nesting box.

photos by me. 2024-04-26 Shelby Bottoms (Nashville, TN)

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Eastern Phoebe plucks an aquatic insect larva emerged from the deep , at the Pool , Central park.

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things are heating up at the lake!

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From Audubon: What Does Generative AI Mean for Bird and Nature Photography?

"To create the side-by-side images that accompany contributor Allen Murabayashi’s essay below, we asked the six photographers who won 2023 Audubon Photography Awards to describe their photos in a few sentences to someone who can’t see the image. With their permission, we fed their descriptions into a popular AI image generator. The results, shown alongside the originals, are based on this single prompt. — The Editors"

#birding #birdwatching #bird photography #wildlife photography #birds #AI #generative AI #audubon photography awards

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Ruby crowned Kinglet takes a gnat near Jagiello statue, Central park.

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photos you can hear

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What a beautiful face. Wild Turkey. (It's blinking in the second photo, which is why its eye looks cloudy.)

photos by me, 2024-03-25, Cornelia Fort Airpark, Nashville, TN

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  Get to know your bird organizations:

Audubon Society

The Audubon Society is known as the most important conservation policy and advocacy group in North America, organizing research and helping to pass laws (including the Migratory Bird Act) protecting vulnerable species and vital areas.

The society has local chapters, its own wildlife refuges, and nature centers that provide school and summer camps.

Audubon is also known for community-driven research such as the annual Christmas Bird Count (the "CBC")—see data visualization here, and the Great Backyard Bird Count.

The Audubon Photography Awards are something to look forward to each year, with incredible work from around the world being celebrated for sheer beauty, humor, and bird behaviors. The photos are published in the Summer issue of the society's magazine (the submission period is January through February).

Two of the highlights of Audubon's research and information are:  

Guide to North American Birds (website and app for iPhone and Android); This is my preferred field guide for birds, and I especially appreciate the easy navigation of the app. It has a Bird ID function, provides 3-5 photos of each species, range maps, information on habitat and nesting, examples of bird calls, and tabs for sightings (using eBird data), photos of similar birds. One thing that stands out is that the Audubon app downloads the bird information to your phone (the regional pack file sizes can be pretty big), so you don't need an active cellphone signal (helpful in remote areas).   

Bird Migration Explorer (visualizer showing the movement of birds at any point in the year, including individually tagged birds).   

(Eastern Phoebe photo by @everydayesterday)

#north american birder #audubon #national audubon society #birding #birdwatching #nature conservation #birds #bird migration explorer #christmas bird count #great backyard bird count #audubon photography awards

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Northern Flicker at sparrows rock, Central park

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Virginia Wildlife; vol. 32, no. 10. October, 1971. Illustration by John W. Taylor.

Internet Archive

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Nesting and neighbourly Wood Ducks! What a great set of photos.

more drama! looks like this bird house is hot on the market (｡>ヮ< )

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Anyway, here's a Dark-Eyed Junco ⬛👁️ cracking a safflower seed.

etymology: junco (n.) 1706 as a book-name (now obsolete) for the reed-sparrow, from Modern Latin junco "reed, bush," from Latin iuncus "reed, rush" (see jonquil). Later (by 1858) as the name of a North American snow-bird, from the use of the Modern Latin word as a genus name in the finch* family.

[*Ed. note: it is a sparrow, not a finch]

photo by me, 2024-03-08, my backyard, Nashville, TN.

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Canada Goose. 🍁 photo by me, 2024-03-14.

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Angry-looking American Coot (Red-shielded)

photo by me, 2024-03-14

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A male House Finch cronching on seeds.

photos by me. 2024-03-14.

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Some backyard birds in the late afternoon sun. Pretty decent lighting.

photos by me. 2024-03-13, Nashville, TN

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EDIT (again): Piebald and Leucistic are technically both correct here. What can cause birds to show weird color variations? | All About Birds All About Birds

[Additionally, per wikipedia, 'The word "piebald" originates from a combination of "pie," from "magpie", and "bald", meaning "white patch" or spot. The reference is to the distinctive black-and-white plumage of the magpie.']

Common Grackle (leucistic), taken by Rick Beaudon at Presqu'ile Provincial Park, located on the north shore of Lake Ontario.

[via Macaulay Library]

#piebald