Saturday, February 9, 2008

Digi-day training


after work today i went to Maplewood Flats to do some scoping.
the weather was grey and i knew there might not be much to see as early afternoon is always pretty quiet. still, you have to go out you know?
early on i passed on taking shots of Bald Eagle and GBH because of lighting but soon realized if that was the case, i might as well just go home as it wasn't going to get any better.
so i decided to try and get a shot of every single species i saw on my walk around the area.

it would be good practice to get into the habit of really 'taking the shot first and asking questions later', no matter what.
i'm 99% certain that i will be going the the World Series of Birding - 24 hour Digi Day digiscoping competition (to be held this May in Cape May New Jersey) if i can find another able scoper to join forces (rules state 2 scopers minimum) with myself and Audy (who will be a more than capable spotter).
even if i don't actually end up competing though we will go anyways just for the eastern birds.
so this picture collage above is the first training session, heck if i can get 22 species (24 if i count the 2 i passed on) at Maplewood on a sleepy Friday afternoon i'm pretty sure i can rack up a few more than that over in one of the top birding spots in the USA during peak spring migration
Wink

2 comments:

Unknown said...

HI, just looking at your photos, great shots but the first mention of a common black hawk is really a Harris's Hawk. The next mentioned black hawk is correct. Also the peregrine you saw in delta is an Anatum.

Paul Kusmin said...

thanks roy for taking the time to check out my pictures.
looking at that first shot and looking closer at my field guide i can see now that it it a Harris's Hawk. very cool as it's a Lifer.
cheers.

i'll also change the latin name of the Peregrine in my picture to Falco peregrinus anatum.
thanks, i have much to learn.

The Waiting Area

The Waiting Area