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Foxfire_ posted:Can anyone identify this bird? A little over a foot tall. Looks like a young Red-tailed Hawk. I'm guessing this is a phone photo but if you happen to have a high-res photo you might be able to get enough info on the leg bands to find out more about this individual's history. Given you're in SF this could be a recent capture from the Marin Headlands by Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, although it's also possible it's a bird that was taken to a wildlife rehabilitation place and released. Also possible it was banded in the nest as part of a research study.
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Oct 21, 2022 18:06
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 19:07 |
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red-tailed hawk
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Oct 21, 2022 18:07
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Thanks. Either them or a bird that looks the same has lived around here for a few years, so seems like they're doing well for themselves. It's a very big bird to be coming up 5ft away from you with nothing in between
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Oct 21, 2022 19:08
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Foxfire_ posted:Thanks. Either them or a bird that looks the same has lived around here for a few years, so seems like they're doing well for themselves. No doubt! Now just imagine you were a squirrel. Where in the city are you? I was going to ask in a FB group to see if there are some likely candidates. A 5 second google search only pulled up the nest in the Presidio but there could be more in different parts of the city. This particular bird probably hatched this year. But if there is a nest nearby it could be you've had parents and multiple years of youngsters visiting your balcony.
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Oct 21, 2022 19:33
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Near where candlestick park used to be
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Oct 21, 2022 19:56
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A couple of folks in a local birding forum are pretty sure it's a GGRO bird, so a young red-tail migrating through that got captured and banded in Marin on its way south. If I get confirmation I'll post it here.
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Oct 22, 2022 05:28
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In a world going to pot, a bit of good news: https://twitter.com/GoughIsland/status/1584826076886597633c
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Oct 25, 2022 19:04
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I'm about to go birding for the first time, I had some of the local park rangers tell me a good area and time to search for Bald Eagles. I'm going to get some cheap binoculars to look, any other tips?
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Oct 26, 2022 00:21
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cognitios posted:I'm about to go birding for the first time, I had some of the local park rangers tell me a good area and time to search for Bald Eagles. I'm going to get some cheap binoculars to look, any other tips? Wear a hat
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Oct 26, 2022 02:03
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BetterLekNextTime posted:A couple of folks in a local birding forum are pretty sure it's a GGRO bird, so a young red-tail migrating through that got captured and banded in Marin on its way south. If I get confirmation I'll post it here. 
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Oct 26, 2022 03:03
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cognitios posted:I'm about to go birding for the first time, I had some of the local park rangers tell me a good area and time to search for Bald Eagles. I'm going to get some cheap binoculars to look, any other tips? The Merlin app is very good and helpful for identifying stuff
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Oct 26, 2022 07:25
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cognitios posted:I'm about to go birding for the first time, I had some of the local park rangers tell me a good area and time to search for Bald Eagles. I'm going to get some cheap binoculars to look, any other tips? Eagles are huge so look for big lumps on trees near the shore or big rear end birds flying around. It helps if you learn what a soaring Turkey Vulture looks like (shallow V and teetering a bit when soaring, usually don't sustain flapping flight for more than a few wingbeats). This may sound obvious but make sure you adjust your bins for your eyes. Most models have some eyecup adjustment to get the distance from your eye to the lens optimal, and that distance is pretty different for glasses-wearers compared to non-glasses wearers. There's also a diopter adjustment for differences in focal distance for each eye. Usually you close one eye, focus using the normal focus knob, then use the other eye and adjust the diopter knob to get the best focus there. It's not that you can't see anything without doing these two steps but it's a lot more pleasant to have your bins set up properly. Other than that, I'd say use your ears as much as your eyes. Even if you can't ID birds by sound yet, focusing on sounds tells you where something is. you can explore birding hotspots using eBird. This tells you the recent lists of birds that other people saw there and you can also get seasonal bar-charts of what's common and what's unusual your time of year. Have fun!
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Oct 26, 2022 18:53
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There's also the Audobon app, which is good; and I recently was introduced to the app by Cornell U called "Merlin" by another birder, and it's capable of identifying a bird from its song (you record a bit).
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Oct 26, 2022 19:26
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cognitios posted:I'm about to go birding for the first time, I had some of the local park rangers tell me a good area and time to search for Bald Eagles. I'm going to get some cheap binoculars to look, any other tips? Look at something with your eyes, try to note a reference point, and without moving your eyea/head raise your binoculars to your eyes. Try to point them in the same direction you are looking, but otherwise find your reference. Be patient with yourself. Tree trunk, left, thick branch is a good sort of reference point for fine tuning where you are looking. Eyes see movement and patterns. Look for movement or a break in the pattern. Be patient. Get up earlier than you expect. They sound like a pathetic whistling noise. TV bald eagle sounds are a red tailed hawk.
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Oct 26, 2022 23:43
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As someone who both enjoys birds and has terrible color vision, don't underestimate how much you'll use your ears. It can be really helpful to be patient and stay still and just listen for songs and calls to guide you. Especially when so much birding in the US is looking for slightly different little brown birds. For binoculars I have these and I'm happy with them as a relatively new bird looker - https://www.celestron.com.au/products/nature-dx-8x42-binoculars
VacaGrande fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Oct 28, 2022 |
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Oct 28, 2022 05:20
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Foxfire_ posted:They were back today and someone got a side view picture. The color band colors are ones GGRO uses. I think there's supposed to be a letter above the number that's lost in the fluff though. I heard from the banding coordinator at Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. She was really excited to get the info and there's enough from the 2 photos you posted to get an ID on the bird. It is indeed a bird caught in Marin and she was excited to learn about where it ended up. She'd love to hear from you directly to get more detail on the location of the bird and how long its been there. Her contact Teresa Ely, tely@parksconservancy.org additionally, she was hoping you could report this to the national bird banding database. All* banded birds get a uniquely-numbered aluminum band provided by the US Geological Survey, but those are almost impossible to read unless the bird is found dead or injured or recaptured at a bird banding station. In the GGRO project they've added unique colored bands to the other leg and with the two photos we can tell it's a Lavender band with "P 66" on the left leg. You can report this to reportband.gov and it will become real data and (I think they still do this) you get a certificate indicating the history of the band. *a few game birds get state-issued bands, and pet/hobby birds like racing pigeons have their own independent system
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Oct 29, 2022 16:39
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hello bird people i think i have become bird people my wife (a long-time insane bird person) and i recently stumbled into all the sandhill cranes overwintering in southern new mexico. quite the experience. she has a pair of good 8x42 binoculars, and i want to buy her/us another pair for christmas. i was thinking a pair of 10x50 or 12x50 vortex diamondbacks, to give us more reach sometimes. that seem okay? Or should I bother with IS (...that's a lot more expensive) here is a bird (a lesser sandhill crane) 
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Nov 22, 2022 19:25
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Have you considered a spotting scope to compliment binoculars, rather than than duplication bins? A scope and modest tripod provides much more usable high magnification than bins. https://www.audubon.org/gear/scope-guide Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Nov 22, 2022 |
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Nov 22, 2022 20:10
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Pablo Bluth posted:Have you considered a spotting scope to compliment binoculars, rather than than duplication bins? A scope and modest tripod provides much more usable high magnification than bins. I was going to suggest this too. Scopes really open up waterfowl/shorebird opportunities. If you stick with binoculars, i probably wouldn’t worry about IS unless you have really unstable hands.
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Nov 22, 2022 21:07
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i bought a scope, but didn't really like using it, and my wife especially didn't like it. centering the image in the eyepiece was a little hard on the one i bought. maybe in the future. i looked through a Swarovski scope years ago in yellowstone. this was not that experience. i returned it. ~$350 is the most i can really spend, and uh, seems like that's not enough to get a spotting scope that doesn't make me hate it. thank you for the IS note though, i've never used binoculars with IS, it just seemed nice?? but neither of us have a problem keeping binoculars still.
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Nov 22, 2022 21:32
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350 bux isn't a lot for optics and won't get you a decent scope even used, I reckon. I'd just spend it on decent standard birding bins, magnification 8 or 10. 12x50 might be great for shorebirds and birds of prey but unwieldy for most other uses
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Nov 22, 2022 21:48
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On that subject, my wife wants something cheap and compact she can put in her purse for those times she sees some bird while out and about. We already have car-noculars and a nice pair of Nikon binoculars. This is something whose primary characteristic is small, it doesn't need to be hyper magnifying or have crystal clear optical characteristics. Monocular is fine. Does such a thing exist in a price point that isn't $lol? My wife is uh... brutal on optics/glass. Seconding that IS is nice but not at all necessary. Used a friend's high end canon IS binoculars and while very nice wasn't worth the $ to me.
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Nov 23, 2022 00:49
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H110Hawk posted:On that subject, my wife wants something cheap and compact she can put in her purse for those times she sees some bird while out and about. We already have car-noculars and a nice pair of Nikon binoculars. This is something whose primary characteristic is small, it doesn't need to be hyper magnifying or have crystal clear optical characteristics. Monocular is fine. Does such a thing exist in a price point that isn't $lol? As far as I know compact binoculars (and I guess monoculars) scale about like normal-sized binoculars. I have something like these (can't find them at the moment to confirm the brand lol). I haven't used them much recently but they used to ride around in my backpack on my commute. Just keep them in their case and they should be fine.
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Nov 23, 2022 06:09
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Seems like a good time/place to ask - I've been warned against leaving binoculars in the car because high temperatures can damage them. I'd love to have mine available on a whim but I don't want to mess up a (relatively) high-dollar trinket. How real is this concern? I do live somewhere with pretty intense sun, although they would live in the console out of the sun, the car is garaged most of the time, and it has pretty dark tint.
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Nov 24, 2022 04:46
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VacaGrande posted:Seems like a good time/place to ask - I've been warned against leaving binoculars in the car because high temperatures can damage them. I'd love to have mine available on a whim but I don't want to mess up a (relatively) high-dollar trinket. How real is this concern? I do live somewhere with pretty intense sun, although they would live in the console out of the sun, the car is garaged most of the time, and it has pretty dark tint. Don't know the upper limit but under-seat or glove-box storage should be fine under most conditions. Most bins probably have warranties that would cover separated coatings regardless. But yeah, if you live in Phoenix and it's 117 maybe I wouldn't leave them in there if I were parking in the sun all afternoon?
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Nov 24, 2022 20:25
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  I saw these two birds hanging out at the park just now. The bottom one is making a nest. Watched him dig in the hole he's made. The other one hopped over to another tree and was chowing on some bugs.
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Nov 25, 2022 20:20
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Finally getting my nocs for christmas. Birds better watch out if they dont want to be quietly observed from some distance.
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Nov 29, 2022 01:06
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Is this a good thread to ask questions about BirdNet Pi? I just set one up and it's really cool but I'm curious how to get a cleaner audio signal with less of a noise floor. It already picked up an owl this evening 
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Jan 18, 2023 06:09
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DR FRASIER KRANG posted:BirdNet Pi Holy poo poo that looks cool AF.
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Jan 18, 2023 06:17
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There's a Bioacoustics Stack Exchange that would actually be perfect for that question: https://bioacoustics.stackexchange.com/ It's hard to give a good answer without way more info about your hardware though.
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Jan 18, 2023 06:20
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DR FRASIER KRANG posted:Is this a good thread to ask questions about BirdNet Pi? Cool! Not sure if anyone here is an expert. A lot of things can potentially cause noisy recordings (wind or other environmental effects, electrical interference, microphone or pre-amp issues, bad filter...). Maybe there's a Cornell forum with some tech guidance? can you post a photo of how you have it deployed?
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Jan 18, 2023 06:37
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Yeah I guess it was an open ended question but I didn't want to bog down an active bird thread with audio related questions. My setup is very basic. I'm using an omnidirectional lapel mic with a usb sound card into a raspberry pi. I've seen some people say that giving the rpi cleaner power will result in less hum on the microphone so that's the first thing I'm going to try. I'm just using the regular power supply but I saw a comment saying that using a laptop power supply with a usb port on it can give it the proper grounding it needs. Another thing I'm going to try is a different brand usb sound card in case the one I have is introducing some kind of ground loop.
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Jan 18, 2023 06:59
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withak posted:Holy poo poo that looks cool AF. It's not 24/7, but the Merlin app now does this in your phone, too. It's really neat - just turn it on during the dawn or evening chorus and let it figure out what's around.
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Jan 18, 2023 08:24
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DR FRASIER KRANG posted:Yeah I guess it was an open ended question but I didn't want to bog down an active bird thread with audio related questions. Power supply to a lapel mic sounds like a possibility. Also check if there's any wind/low freq roll off settings on the mic or high-pass filter in the software that will cut the low noise. I don't know if you have much recording experience but in case you don't, just make sure you temper your expectations of the recording quality you're going to get. And do everything you can to position the mic closer to where the birds are and away from any local sources of environmental noise. Just because your ears know something is there doesn't mean it will stand out in a recording.
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Jan 18, 2023 16:59
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DR FRASIER KRANG posted:Yeah I guess it was an open ended question but I didn't want to bog down an active bird thread with audio related questions. If you're buying a power supply, it might also be a good idea to make sure you get one that has a ground pin on the plug. Most don't seem to. Do you get the same hum when you use the same card with a computer?
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Jan 18, 2023 19:06
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You can always try the 'ol ferrite ring on the power cord. Sometimes it can help with EM noise.
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Jan 18, 2023 20:01
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I just had the most surreal experience. I was looking through a list of birds of NY and I've seen all of them(almost daily) except for one called the Cedar Waxwing. I've never heard about it or seen it before. I googled it and it looks like some loving AI generated poo poo that was just added to the matrix. I really want to see this bird.
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Mar 10, 2023 17:12
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Look for large flocks of cardinal-shaped birds in trees and bushes, especially ones with berries like hollies. They're known for totally gorging themselves when they visit a tree. I also see them in flowering tulip poplars. They go to town on the flowers.
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Mar 10, 2023 17:22
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They have a high pitched whistly call that can help you notice them too. Also, they are smaller than I always expected from just looking at pictures before I initially saw one in person.
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Mar 10, 2023 17:33
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HungryHungryHobo posted:I just had the most surreal experience. I was looking through a list of birds of NY and I've seen all of them(almost daily) except for one called the Cedar Waxwing. I've never heard about it or seen it before. I googled it and it looks like some loving AI generated poo poo that was just added to the matrix. I have them where I live in Colorado, and they are beautiful! My wife took this picture at a nearby pond. 
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Mar 10, 2023 17:34
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