|
Merlin is the best free bird ID app I’m familiar with. Ebird is fun gamification of bird identification, but you need to know what you are looking at, or someone is going to call you out for misidentification. For a while I tried to break into the top 100 in my county, but it’s really hard to catch up to the folks that have been recording sightings since the 80s. Look for local hotspots on ebird: birders tend to heavily favor the time efficient places to see a lot of good birds. Almost everywhere will work (birds are everywhere), but some are a bit birdier than others. Went rock climbing yesterday and we were getting circled by turkey vultures all day, despite obviously not having gone there for birds. I think I’ve basically only seen peregrines on alpine climbing trips. They are common elsewhere, i just have not seen them. If you are looking for rarities, I’d look for your local birding mailing list. A lot of birders are stuck in the 90s when it comes to non-ebird tech. If you are feeling spicy you can look at the unverified submissions on ebird (since they have lower latency than verified ones), but the mailing lists tend to be best.
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2020 10:13
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 16:45 |
|
|
Enfys posted:I got a pair of mini binoculars - Leica 10x25 - and would really recommend minis if you get outside regularly and want to make looking at birds (and other cool things) part of your regular routine. I always used to have the feeling that I needed to be doing some kind of Official Outdoor Activity to take the regular binoculars along, so I didn't bring them with me all that often unless I was specifically going out to look for birds or going on a hike etc. If it weren’t for cost I’d have already done the same. I should probably buy a pair of decent pocket bins. When starting out, I think I overestimated the practicality of full sized bins. Any advice on entry level 10x25s? My GF carries her 8x42s and a west coast sibley with her in a monster purse. She trained her shoulder pre-covid by carrying a full size mac book basically everywhere. She’s the reason I got into birding in the first place.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2020 04:15
|
|
|
BetterLekNextTime posted:I keep blocking it out that I've never a condor. My GF and I spent two afternoons looking for condors. Drove up and down Hwy 1 near Big Sur looking for things that weren't Turkey Vultures. Spent an evening at the top of the High Peaks trail at Pinnacles NP and watched hundreds of Turkey Vultures come to roost. But no condors. So. Many. Turkey. Vultures. That said, watching the roosting Turkey Vultures was pretty awesome. Would highly recommend. Would also recommend an actual flashlight if you want to do that (we used our cell phone camera lights like real adults that definitely plan ahead). If they weren't Critically Endangered I'd promote them to my nemesis bird. They don't need any more enemies tho.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2020 06:07
|
|