The re-birth of the "UOB" - 2005 to 2006

A walk down the old memory lane as the "Unusual Ontario Birds" page re-emerges...... For as little as $0.00 you can enjoy old favourites such as;

"the pain in the ass" 2006 Razorbill!

Along with new edits such as: 

And never before seen footage such as: 

Again, for the low low price of $0.00 !!!!!!!!!





2006

Dec 15, 2006 - Razorbill - the "hard to get" bird at the mouth of the Niagara River. I went 6 times, saw it twice.

Nov 26, 2006 - Barrow's Goldeneye - on the lakefront in Stoney Crek

Oct 6, 2006 - California Gull - self found at Wheatley Harb with my Dad. (Not a bad weekend)

Oct 5, 2006 - Swainson's Hawk - self found at Seacliffe (Leamington) with my Dad

Sep 16, 2006 - Loggerhead Shrike - found at Delaurier (Pelee)

Sep 1, 2006 - Manx Shearwater - thankfully still around the next morning. Van Wagner's, Hamilton.

Aug 31, 2006 - Tricolored Heron - almost missed the above bird to get these photos....

May 24, 2006 - Lawrence's Warbler - the famous bird at the Dundas Valley CA in Hamilton

May 23, 2006 - Curlew Sandpiper - at the Townsend Poop Ponds

May 11, 2006 - Cassin's Vireo - or maybe not - Pelee

May 8, 2006 - Black-billed Magpie - near the tip of Pelee. Sorta self-found.

May 7, 2006 - Common Teal - self found at Hillman Marsh

Feb 26, 2006 - Sage Thrasher - a glorious twitch for February. Very cooperative.



2005

Nov 4, 2005 - Cave Swallows - 30+ on the day in Hamilton, ON

Sep 18, 2005 - Ruff - a self found Reeve at the Townsend poop lagoons.

Jul 1, 2005 - Cattle Egrets - a pair near Rock Point

May 15, 2005 - Glossy Ibis - in a ditch outside of Pelee

May 14, 2005 - American White Pelicans - big group at Hillman. Part of an awesome few days at Pelee/Hillman.

May 14, 2005 - Yellow-crowned Night-Heron - 1st alt at Hillman

May 13, 2005 - Summer Tanager - a cooperative and striking 1st alt male.

May 13, 2005 - Kirtland's Warbler - the superstar at NW Beach.

May 2, 2005 - American Avocets - a flock of 25, with Willets to boot - at Van Wagner's in Hamilton.

Feb 19, 2005 - California X Herring Gull hybrid - from lock 4 of the Welland Canal. A rare combo.

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Call now and we'll include the walk down memory lane of "Mid May 2005 at Pelee" with highlights such as Kirtland's Warbler, Summer Tanager, Cerulean Warbler, Glossy Ibis, American White Pelican, Eurasian Wigeon, King Rail and Yellow-crowned Night-Heron that we all got to see in a matter of days! (If you were there for that crazy run)... 

The re-birth of the "UOB" - 2003 to 2004

Back in the good old'e days, I had a page on my website called "Unusual Ontario Birds" .....


Then my website died a horrible death when I had a hacker-attack of some sort that inserted malicious code onto every page of my darn site!


Then I tried to rebuild quickly, but years worth of work had been put into the darn thing... I managed to get my main species back online, but other parts (like the UOB page) were merely patch jobs with useless things like flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhbirds/


It was fine in the short term, but IT AIN'T FINE ANYMORE!




I started with the oldies... I actually did a re-edit on 75% of these photos, and some have never before seen the light of the interwebs... Such as this one:

Or this one:

2004

Nov 23, 2004 - Cave Swallows - 2 birds, the first for Hamilton (and self found)

Nov 21, 2004 - Rufous Hummingbird - the star of Niagara in 2004

Nov 11, 2004 - King Eider - funky plumage at Fifty Point. Late fall was good to me in '04!

Nov 9, 2004 - Western Grebe - Fifty Point CA in Grimsby

Oct 31, 2004 - Pacific Loon - my self found adult that set off the "patagonia picnic table effect" at Fifty Point in Grimsby

Aug 31, 2004 - Cattle Egret - near Rock Point

Mid Aug, 2004 - Painted Bunting - stunner of a 2CY at Normandale

Jun 16, 2004 - Black-necked Stilts - the birds that produced Ontario's first nest at the Jarvis sewage ponds

May 9, 2004 - Harris's Sparrow - a fun self found at Long Point



2003

Dec 17, 2003 - Gray Flycatcher - an incredible CBC flycatcher to twitch in Hagersville

Sep 27, 2003 - Black-capped Petrel - a dead bird thanks to Isabel. Awaiting the day I get a living one!

Sep 14, 2003 - Western Sandpiper - a juv at the Grimsby angry army poop swamp

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Remember those good times?! Again, this is a much more limited collection than the "old site" had, but I DID get the best species back online (who really cares about Long-tailed Jaegers anymore anyways......)

Greater Yellowlegs photo

A new photo. Taken in April on Georgian Bay. 

Sometimes I like a photo because of the setting/background (as I do here)... 

Sometimes I like a photo because of the species (same here - have always had bad luck with Greater Legs) 

Sometimes I like a photo because of the light (ditto)

and sometimes I like a photo because of how I got it. (Sssame here!) - I was driving a boat up the river, grabbed my camera and was steering with my leg as we drove.. Kinda fun. 

http://peregrineprints.com/zz_GRYE.htm

ebird hacked!

Funny story from ebird - if you noticed the front page was messed up/missing for a while.. They were hacked... (I know their pain, after having my website messed up a few years ago).


Here's a screen capture I took - before they managed to remove it..

Not sure what type of beef these idiots had with ebird, but I hope they're happy....

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As a side note - this is the first blog pots I've written "the day of publishing" for several weeks. I'm darn close to getting back into the real world (maybe a week) - where I can start working on emails etc again. 

I appreciate the opportunity to get a large amount of "fun/outdoor work" from breeding bird season, but by the end of it - I start to wish that birds didn't nest at all!

Then I remember, we'd run out of birds if it didn't happen... So I suppose I can continue to deal with it. 

More new photos of birds in flight

Eastern Meadowlark:  http://peregrineprints.com/zz_EAME.htm

Taken in the evening at Pt Pelee this May near the tip.




Hoary Redpoll - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_HORE.htm

Taken at Netitishi Point on James Bay in 2011




Merlin - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_MERL.htm

Taken at the tip of Pelee this past May (in the evening) - 600mm hand held... Only shot that had the bird in the frame, and the only one in focus (that combo doesn't come together very often).

Climate Change - worth a read

Check out the link below for some weather fun. If we're gonna mess the place up, at least we'll see good birds....


http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/

Global Climate Change Indicators

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Climatic Data Center

Red Columbine Photoshoot

Apparently once per year I take some pictures of flowers... Last year it was Trilliums...

http://www.blog.peregrineprints.com/2012/07/trillium-photos.html



This year, a well lit patch of Red Columbine:

The early morning light made the colours go a bit funky, but I really liked how the sun was really only hitting the one flower that was fully opened and pointing down. 

Why are there not more female birders?

I missed out on some fun when I didn't have the internet! -

The ABA did a post about female birders

http://blog.aba.org/2013/06/open-mic-the-field-glass-ceiling-women-mcdonald.html

As did places like 10'000 birds:

http://10000birds.com/why-arent-there-more-female-birding-superstars.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+10000Birds+%2810%2C000+Birds%29&utm_content=FaceBook


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And they both got a lot of attention.... So lets all put our heads together and wonder about why we don't encounter a higher percentage of ladies while standing at the tip of Pelee each May...

I know I'm willing to put in some time, money, effort, donate bone marrow, etc to help figure this out!

Anyone? Anyone?

Seriously...

End of the Photos Hoot "week of birds in flight" !! - some other misc species

All good things must come to an end.. Until I edit more and post them later...

Eastern Kingbird - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_EAKI.htm

Blue-headed Vireo - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BHVI.htm

Red-bellied Woodpecker - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_RBWO.htm

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_RCKI.htm

I was pretty happy to get the Kinglet. Don't seem them reversing all that often, and they're darn small and hard to track... Getting the full wing-spread is the added challenge - as most birds (beyond Blue Jays) spend more time with their wings folded than open... Woodpeckers are maybe 50/50 and the little guys are like 90-90% wings closed in flight... 

Photoshoot: Blue-gray Gnatcatchers - in FLIGHT!

Continuing theme for birds in flight this year.. Had some luck with those gnat-men and gnat-ladies...

Uploaded in the right place - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BGGN.htm

Photoshoot - Cardinals and Allies - IN FLIGHT!!!

I guess it's passerines in flight week on the blog - I should have mentioned that all of these are from Pelee this May. Most of which were during reverse migrations.

(Now you know what I did with those thousands of photos I took... Probably kept 1 in 400)

Rose-breasted Grosbeak! - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_RBGR.htm

Northern Cardinal! - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_NOCA.htm

Indigo Bunt Bunt! - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_INBU.htm

Scurrrlet Tanager!! http://peregrineprints.com/zz_SCTA.htm

Photoshoot - other warblers - IN FLIGHT

Chestnut-sided Warbler - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_CSWA.htm

Black-and-white Warbler! - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BAWW.htm

(quality isn't totally where I would like it to be - but I'm going with quantity at first.. Maybe if i get better images over the next several years, I'll replace it)

Pine Warbler ! - http://peregrineprints.com/zz_PIWA.htm

3 reasons I like this one. 

1. I kinda think this bird is a "vagrant" - at the tip of Pelee after mid May. (or an overshoot or something) 

2. There's a gnatcatcher providing some space-filler

3. It's a male Pine Warbler (not one I see in flight very often)

Photoshoot! - Yellow-rumped Warblers, in FLIGHT

Workin on those passerines in flight this spring..... Not easy, but I actually got some stuff that I like! I usually want the pics I have on my website to be in the 4000+ pixels on the longest side/range - but for passerines in flight, i think I'm willing to lower the standard to at least 2000 pixels... Anyhoot..

Photos!

Computer background image offer - a point pelee scene

I'm not really sure if anyone ever takes one of these, but I'm still gonna do it... If you want, here's a "computer background image" offer - big enough to hopefully look decent...

This is the typical situation - this was the background on my own computer for several weeks, and I enjoyed it. I've now switched it, but then though to myself  "maybe someone else would enjoy it too?"

And voila....


PS - for those who don't know, it's the viewing platform at Sanctuary Pond at Pelee - on a very calm morning...

Herring Gull catches Perch

June update - when I first posted this, the "light box" photo-viewer thing wasn't working.... Now it is (I hope) - so I thought I'd re-post to do it some justice

(plus, it's easy blog material)

The post written back in March -


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I put the answer to the "Mergie quiz" in the comments here:

http://www.blog.peregrineprints.com/2013/03/mergie-picture.html

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Just did a quick convert here for some blog material... A Herring Gull catching a perch... I selected the "cool" images from the series, and just saved them at web size (all unedited full-frame originals)... I'm sure I'll pick out 2-3 that I really like from the series and put them on the HEGU page someday, but for now - blog material!

One of my favourite photos of the spring - by far...

Probably not groundbreaking news or anything, but the below image is one of my favourite photos of 2013 thus far (a major highlight of my spring at Pelee as well)...

I've finally got around to editing my final copy... With all the photos on the "good part" of my website (not the blog in general) are edited tiff's saved at the highest possible resolution. Typically they're full frame (or nearly so) and are around 45-40mb as 8bit Tiff files. 

This is really handy for me, as when I get requests for photos - I already have the high res ready and just have to email the files. 

It also works against me sometimes, when I only have 900 pixel long image online. The full res images are about 4900 pixels on the longest size - which equates to a LOT more detail (and looking better) on my computer screen than the versions people see online... 

Anyways - part of what really makes me happy with the above image is that the file I have on my computer is 2800 pixels on the long side - which is really good for a passerine in flight (I was pretty shocked it turned out)... And why it's one of my favourites!

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So anyways, just a little background info. I would be happier if the above image had the birds bill separated from the wing (instead of overlapping) -- but that's not the kind of thing one can control. 

Image spec's - 

Canon 1DM4 DSLR with the 600mm F4 lens (hand held) ... 1/2500, F 6.3, ISO 1250 

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Uploaded here: 

http://peregrineprints.com/zz_BLBW.htm

I focused on getting passerines in flight this spring, and may have a few more to show in due time. Watch this space! 

Old OBRC Reports - REJECTED edition

http://peregrineprints.com/zzzz_Article_2008_LIST.htm


Above link: the article to my Little Stint report submitted to the OBRC - that was rejected. I enjoyed writing it, and was P!$$3D when I got the comments back..

Ever happened to you?

I actually wrote some pretty bad reports leading into 2009 because I felt like I had wasted my time writing (and in the above case) researching - just to have it rejected.

Although obviously I got over it eventually :)


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On a different note, here is a bird that I identified right away (well, once I made the ID) - in the field/at the time - and knew EXACTLY what I was looking at... Then my conclusions were (partially) rejected. What am I talking about?

Kamchatka Gull (siberian subspecies of the "Mew Gull" complex) from Nov 2009 -

http://peregrineprints.com/zzzz_Article_2010_KAMG.htm

Accepted as a "Mew Gull" only...


After being on the OBRC for a 3 year voting term, I kinda understand that you really just don't feel right about accepting some of these sightings without photos - no matter how much you believe (or don't believe) the person made the correct call...


Sort of a tough situation with trying to improve the P.R. side of the OBRC over the past year (keeping people happy who will potentially/eventually get a letter saying they disagreed with you) BUT - no one said life was easy..

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Anyhoot. Just some fun on the blog!

A little shameless self promotion.....

Back in the day, I thought blogs were for wierdos... Then I remembered that I'm a wierdo, and things have been flowing along ever since...

On a somewhat related thought:

I've never been one to have an interest in publishing things... Yet I've recently seen the rosy-side of the idea, and actually managed to have something published recently in Ontario Birds - an account of my Black-tailed Gull find in 2009. Actually kinda exciting. I've uploaded a pdf of the article (scanned) here:


http://peregrineprints.com/zzzz_Holden_2013_OntarioBirds.PDF


I figured I'd start pretty basic, and accounts of unusual birds like this seemed pretty easy... You'll have to let me know what you think! And hopefully I'll have a few more in the future. Time will tell.

Insect Galleries finally updated

After an insane 2012 for insects, I finally made sure all my links are active on my Butterfly and Dragonfly index pages:


Odes: http://peregrineprints.com/ind__odes.htm

Red Saddlebags!

Butterfly Index: http://peregrineprints.com/ind__bflys.htm

C-check-skip!

So fresh, so firey!

Sack'em Sachem!

One of the coolest ever! White-M!

Check out the links/pages for more pics!