Diario de mandarinduck008

After months of cameras, computer, iPhone, and home phone problems, I have gone back and tried to retrieve most of my photographs.

I remembered this bird at Chaplin taken on the Nikon and wondered about it. Am I correct? Lark Bunting?

Very hot and smoke-filled day. Almost August and warblers will start their migration again. Today I came upon this group foraging together in the early morning. These different birds can co-operate in finding food and alerting others in the flock of danger. I was wondering if there is scientific term for this kind of mixed group foraging? And are they preparing for the migration?

Now I can recognize a few types of birds and understand certain types of behaviour. Guess I'm getting somewhere with learning birds.

MandarinDuck008

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I realize that 2 persons are named the same.

GFChin

This morning I posted 2 images from May 11, 2024 from Wascana Marsh, Regina, SK.

Did I? Not posted here.

MandarinDuck008

Am trying to get restarted again at my practice of posting to iNaturalist.ca, but my cards are too many and seem to be out of sync with times and places. I do know that from Jun 21-23 I took part in group tours with Nature Saskatchewan up around Saskatoon area, which I quite enjoyed. This area is where the prairies meet with the boreal forest, so different from the Regina area. Then the Yellowthroat I saw a few days ago near my home so I know where that came from.

Have difficulty putting my ID & copyright info on my pictures and I know my computer and iPhone are not safe, but have added security measures to both. My photographs are not worth $, because everyone is a photographer now, though it is difficult to explain that to others. Bragging rights, well, I guess!

By being a volunteer, am I taking a job away from someone else? A young person? I didn't think so, but some do. So have to be careful about that. I do show my photographs sometimes in galleries. I guess I skirt the boundaries of skilled amateur and semi-professional. Most photographers have difficulty making a living wage and therefore have day jobs.

Learning the science of ornithology is a challenge which I enjoy very much. I do not wish to give it up.

My Adobe software has been removed by me because it was something that was desired by others. And they were pretty successful in taking it. Also most of my photographs done as a volunteer for NCC, Nature Saskatchewan and others have been taken, as well as my personal landscape photographs. Over the years I have earned next to nothing, as I do not try to. Others only want my work if it is free. Hmmm! So are my photographs of use to anyone? Or is this merely my ego talking? It took me all morning to barely make a dent in maintaining my privacy protection. And I lost my Apple iCloud and my personal ID.

MandarinDuck008

Am transferring files from cards to hard drive daily. Small cards are easy to loose, so probably safer on an external hard drive. Will try to upload ones that are more special first. Is that correct? Or just keep doing what I can?

MandarinDuck008

Have had great deal of problems with my computer & cameras, particularly relating to my ID. My SD cards got completely filled up over the past month or so. Either I had to erase my cards or purchase more, which is difficult to do in this small town where I live. So over the next few days/weeks, iNaturalist will be receiving my observations not in chronological order, but as I manage to photograph, upload, process, then post. Apologies to all!

MandarinDuck008

Everyone desires to be a socially useful person, even those of us in the arts and humanities, but especially those who have entered retirement too. Taking part in iNaturalist has been extremely educational and rewarding. My choice of participation has been to use a camera. Often real scientists are a little leery of us, with good reason.

While I am learning new things about how to contribute to this particular website everyday. Some things that I found particularly useful were:
1) watching the video about Greg Lasley, amateur photography turned pro, who contributed to iNaturalist. This was very helpful in educating me about what scientists expect to get from photographs, sound bits, and other observations by citizen scientists;
2) reading explanations by botanists, fisheries experts, etc about what they need visual evidences to show;
3) study the observations by others in iNaturalist and other sites and learn to compare.

Most of all, I enjoy being outdoors! And I enjoy using my cameras.

FotoJunkie8