Journal archives for October 2020

October 18, 2020

New to Inaturalist - and working to catch up

I've only been on inaturalist for a week, but I've been tuning in to the natural world for quite a while. My laptop holds over 96,000 pictures, probably 95% of which are nature. (I really should not have looked at that number! Digital cameras are awesome, but lead a person to lose all sense of proportion.)

So, I'm loading old (robber fly) and new (pine siskin) stuff in somewhat of a 'stream of consciousness' way. My robber fly posts generated some interest, so I'm hunting up those pictures - but getting distracted as I go.

I'm on my 3rd camera, and this is the 1st one with GPS. The guy who sold it to me advised not using the GPS because it runs down the battery. I thought, fine, I'll remember where I took the pictures anyway. And I do, especially with the more unusual things. A few, though, make me scratch my head, check the date, and look at pictures in the same time frame before I can put it together. Fortunately after a while I got smart, bought more spare batteries, and turned the GPS on.

So: The oldest pictures from my Canon have date and time info, but it doesn't load into inaturalist so I have to put that in manually. The Nikon P510 pictures load the time and date fine; I just have to add location. Same for the early P900 pictures. The most recent pictures (after I turned the P900's GPS on) are so much easier!

I'm glad I joined up. I'm learning so much! People have been nice about correcting my IDs. And I've been able to do the same for a few other folks.

Posted on October 18, 2020 03:25 AM by whateverwatcher whateverwatcher | 2 observations | 0 comments | Leave a comment

October 20, 2020

Sometimes I get lucky...

Or maybe most of my photos represent good luck. Certainly not skill :)
A chance movement by a bird into a cooperative sunbeam allowed me to be certain of my Red-eyed Vireo.
While photographing a Fourteen-spotted Lady Beetle, I happened to notice a jumping spider lurking in the background. The spider posed cooperatively (so often they jump away!)
Whatever. I am grateful for the opportunity to witness these amazing creatures and to share them with others.

Posted on October 20, 2020 09:23 PM by whateverwatcher whateverwatcher | 3 observations | 0 comments | Leave a comment