Q: Are these "Questions" really "Frequently Asked?"
A: No, this website just went live, like yesterday (depending on when you're reading this, the level of exaggeration there will vary). No one has ever asked me a question about this website. I'm just trying to anticipate some potential questions.
Q: Why are your bird photos so blurry?
A: Because I have little-to-no photography training and I'm taking them on a 2016 iPhone SE.
Q: Why is your phone so old?
A: It's still functioning so it seems unnecessary and wasteful (both of my money and of the physical materials used to make phones) to get a new one, and because I have small hands and small pockets, and newer phones are all way bigger than I want them to be. Also, I like having a headphone jack on my phone. I don't want AirPods.
Q: Why are you using your phone, which is old, to take these photos, instead of getting a nice camera?
A: A big reason is that if I start hiking with a nice camera, I might spend more time trying to get good photos than I do just looking at cool stuff. There are some other reasons, too. A camera that's actually good for photographing small, fast-moving wild animals is likely going to be larger than I want to bring with me on many hikes, and again, I have little-to-no photography training, so
Q: If you're taking these photos on your 2016 phone, how are they so clear? Are you just extremely close to the birds?
A: My binoculars came with a neat little contraption that attaches to your phone and then you can use it to line up the camera with the binoculars! I'm still figuring out how to optimize it, but the photos are much more zoomed-in and clearer than I could get on my phone by itself.
Q: So when do the questions in here get good?
A: Keep reading and find out.
Q: What binoculars do you use?
A: They're Adasion brand 12x42 with a 102m x 1000m field of vision!
Q: How do you know what kinds of birds you're looking at?
A: A few different ways! When I'm out on an adventure and see a bird I don't recognize, I use the app Merlin from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It has options to enter features of a bird you see (my most-used method), record sounds (very useful because I don't know very many bird calls in my brain), and upload a photo (I've never used this one so I can't speak to it). I have a copy of The Sibley Guide to Birds which is excellent, but larger than I want to bring on most hikes. I bring it with me on some excursions, but more often I flip through it at home to get familiar with different types of birds, read about them, and appreciate the artwork. There are also a number of birds I can identify on sight, either because I've seen them enough times before, spent a lot of time looking at pictures of them, or because they're easy to identify through an obvious distinguishing feature or clever trick.
Q: Clever tricks, eh? What kind of clever tricks?
A: For example, turkey vultures are pretty distinct up close, but are often seen backlit from very far away, which makes these large dark-colored raptors hard to tell apart from silhouettes of other large birds. However, soaring turkey vultures wobble from side to side, which makes them easier to identify! They also very rarely flap their wings and their wings point up slightly to form a flattened V shape (as opposed to many other birds whose outstretched wings will form more of a flat plane).
Q: Which bird calls do you know in your brain?
A: Here's an incomplete list: Red-tailed Hawk, Northern Flicker, Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Great Horned Owl, Common Loon, Red-winged Blackbird, Mourning Dove, Rock Pigeon, Canada Goose, Eurasian Collared Dove.
A: No, this website just went live, like yesterday (depending on when you're reading this, the level of exaggeration there will vary). No one has ever asked me a question about this website. I'm just trying to anticipate some potential questions.
Q: Why are your bird photos so blurry?
A: Because I have little-to-no photography training and I'm taking them on a 2016 iPhone SE.
Q: Why is your phone so old?
A: It's still functioning so it seems unnecessary and wasteful (both of my money and of the physical materials used to make phones) to get a new one, and because I have small hands and small pockets, and newer phones are all way bigger than I want them to be. Also, I like having a headphone jack on my phone. I don't want AirPods.
Q: Why are you using your phone, which is old, to take these photos, instead of getting a nice camera?
A: A big reason is that if I start hiking with a nice camera, I might spend more time trying to get good photos than I do just looking at cool stuff. There are some other reasons, too. A camera that's actually good for photographing small, fast-moving wild animals is likely going to be larger than I want to bring with me on many hikes, and again, I have little-to-no photography training, so
Q: If you're taking these photos on your 2016 phone, how are they so clear? Are you just extremely close to the birds?
A: My binoculars came with a neat little contraption that attaches to your phone and then you can use it to line up the camera with the binoculars! I'm still figuring out how to optimize it, but the photos are much more zoomed-in and clearer than I could get on my phone by itself.
Q: So when do the questions in here get good?
A: Keep reading and find out.
Q: What binoculars do you use?
A: They're Adasion brand 12x42 with a 102m x 1000m field of vision!
Q: How do you know what kinds of birds you're looking at?
A: A few different ways! When I'm out on an adventure and see a bird I don't recognize, I use the app Merlin from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It has options to enter features of a bird you see (my most-used method), record sounds (very useful because I don't know very many bird calls in my brain), and upload a photo (I've never used this one so I can't speak to it). I have a copy of The Sibley Guide to Birds which is excellent, but larger than I want to bring on most hikes. I bring it with me on some excursions, but more often I flip through it at home to get familiar with different types of birds, read about them, and appreciate the artwork. There are also a number of birds I can identify on sight, either because I've seen them enough times before, spent a lot of time looking at pictures of them, or because they're easy to identify through an obvious distinguishing feature or clever trick.
Q: Clever tricks, eh? What kind of clever tricks?
A: For example, turkey vultures are pretty distinct up close, but are often seen backlit from very far away, which makes these large dark-colored raptors hard to tell apart from silhouettes of other large birds. However, soaring turkey vultures wobble from side to side, which makes them easier to identify! They also very rarely flap their wings and their wings point up slightly to form a flattened V shape (as opposed to many other birds whose outstretched wings will form more of a flat plane).
Q: Which bird calls do you know in your brain?
A: Here's an incomplete list: Red-tailed Hawk, Northern Flicker, Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Great Horned Owl, Common Loon, Red-winged Blackbird, Mourning Dove, Rock Pigeon, Canada Goose, Eurasian Collared Dove.