Category Archives: iPhone

Florida Birding sans camera

We are enjoying good weather and birding in Cedar Key but an extra leash tug from Ginger ended up with a dropped camera and a jammed lens on my SX60 Canon. So it’s iphone time and the birds here are out there a ways.

We’ve been enjoying pelicans, ibis, oystercatchers, ospreys etc from our back deck and going on some nice outings, but missing the Canon.

We have an Osprey who spends hours on a post just behind the cottage. Here’s a shot of him – sorry about the quality.

Right beside him this morning was a yellow-crowned Night Heron.

We drove out to the little airport today and found hundreds of shorebirds whirling through the wind and alighting on the tarmac. There were hundreds of Semipalmated Plovers, and many dowitchers and sanderlings. Who knows what else was huddled in that avian mass?

A storm is coming and birds are seeking shelter. Here are a lot of Royal Terns huddled on a roof.

New camera time when we get home.

The Sparrow Farm Trail

One of the most scenic sites locally is also a prime birding spot – and a fine mountain bike trail. Today Ginger, our pup, and I took a little hike, seeing and hearing a few birds, but also just enjoying a pretty September morning in Vermont.

The view to the west showing Camel’s Hump peak. A Broad-winged hawk was circling and calling to add a nice touch.

The trail is part of a major network built and maintained by community groups and the city.

Ginger, my birding companion, can get a bit impatient.

Here’s a view from the trail showing the farm and one of the many Monarchs out and about.

Photos by Sally

On our second day at Tandayapa, Sally decided to spend a day birding at the lodge and took some great photos with her IPhone.

Four hummers at the feeder

Sally watched this Toucanet snatch and devour a hummingbird — “That’s nature.”

When we returned to the lodge, everybody had a chanc to hand-fed hummingbirds – quite an amazing experience.

Sunday Afternoon Digiscoping

I took advantage of a damp Sunday afternoon to practice some digiscoping with my iPhone. The lighting was poor but the dog and I had several outings and got a lot of fresh air. I can see why people opt for carbon-fiber tripods- my aluminum one gets pretty heavy one long jaunts.

Here’s a female Northern Cardinal which I sometimes confuse with the Pyrrhuloxia, her Mexican cousin. (Thanks, Sue, for the correction.)

You can’t walk 100 yards here without seeing the Texas state bird, the Northern Mockingbird. They are singing and tussling for territory but unlike blackbirds, they don’t wear out their welcome.

Curved-bill Thrasher are amazing singers and seem to go on for minutes without a pause.

We went down by the lake and found this Great Egret trying to hide in the rushes

This Eastern Phoebe and a partner were actively feeding and calling. It’s nice to think that the “fee-bee” call will be in our Vermont woods in a couple of months.

Not to be outdone, this female Vermillion Flycatcher performed for us. There are perhaps four pairs in the park and while the males are the most spectacular in plumage, the gals do ok.

Vermillion Flycatchers are my kind of bird: easy-to-see, wonderful to watch in action, and inclined to return to, or near the same perch. What’s not to like?

Keep Your Paws Off My Cell Signal

We can see the lights of Mexico across the lake from our Airstream windows – and it’s quite lovely at times. Not so lovely is that their telecom companies can overwhelm our AT&T 4G signal and make communicating a challenge. (To put it in non-barnyard language.)

There’s no decent wifi within 15 miles or so – and we rely on 4g for our iPhones and iPads and do ok, as long as we watch the data usage. I’m writing this on my iPhone with only a couple of bars and “AT&T LTE” showing. However, at any time, since we are about a mile from the border, my signal may go to TELCOM, the powerful Mexican system.

I’ve turned off “roaming” on all our devices to avoid international charges so when this rogue system takes over, my connection just dies.

My iPad is hijacked by a system called MOVISTAR so that’s been useless here at the campground.

Now we have been here before and know the drill but it’s still frustrating. We called the kids yesterday afternoon after driving five miles or so to get a decent signal. (Of course, that’s the distance I have to drive on Vermont to get coverage when our power goes out.) we have learned some tricks to get our electronic fixes. Libraries are great, coffee shops ( if there was one within 50 miles) and many fast food places are wired. I’ve found that some box stores have great wifi.

So, if you see this guy in Walmart or H.E.B. carrying his iPad, glancing at it surreptitiously from time to time, it’s only me using the wifi to download *Sports Illustrated* or *The New Yorker*, or TurboTax updates. As our son Rich quipped, “Download not quite done yet, time to cruise the baby food aisle again.”

I’d better finish this before TELCEL gets greedy. I’m down to one bar.

An iPhone Red, White, & Blue Trifecta

This morning, a few of us brave souls met at the pier for a bird walk. I had every piece of warm clothing I had brought, including “hot hands” insert for my mittens, and managed to stay relatively warm. I was keeping score on my iPhone so that entailed working with bare hands but we had a good time. We recorded 40 species – nothing particularly unusual – but like many walks, too much talking, not enough looking and listening. It was too windy to steady the camera so I decided to do some shooting in the afternoon.

I brought the iPhone adapter along and did some digiscoping. The Red, White, and Blue Trifecta ( Snowy Egret, Roseate Spoonbill, & Little Blue Heron) was the first group of birds I encountered. They were at a distance but happily feeding away. Many of the other shorebirds were too far for clear shots, particularly on a cloudy, windy day. The Great Egret posed nicely for me before flying off so I called it quits to return to the snug trailer.

A Snowy Egret, Roseate Spoonbill, & Little Blue Heron in one scope view.

 

A Little Blue Heron.

 

A Great Egret posing for an iPhone digiscope.

 

So far, I have 76 species in three days in the County and would like to break 100 this week. We’ll see if improving weather stirs up some. We plan to drive down to the boat ramp tonight in hopes of getting a look at some Black-crowned Night Herons.

This Year’s Harbor Seal Fix

We are in Massachusetts for Thanksgiving, arriving here before the Nor’Easter, and settling in for a snowy day or two.  We are just inside the snow line and will likely get 3-6 inches of heavy wet snow.

Screen Shot 2014-11-26 at 3.42.30 PM

This morning, I took Penny out in the truck to do some pre-storm birding. It was raw with a wind out of the north but we had several hours before the cold rain started. We stopped at nearby Lake Attitash and saw some Mute Swans and Buffleheads before retreating back to the truck.

Salisbury Beach State Reservation is one of my favorite birding spots since unlike Parker River NWR,  I can bring the dog along. Today, I even got a new life bird — Northern Gannet #411 — a bird I have missed a number of times. Four were actively feeding far out to sea this morning, plunging into the icy water for food.  Fun to watch.

Other highlights of the morning for me were Horned Larks, Common Goldeneyes, Common Eiders, Northern Mockingbirds, and Great Black-backed Gulls.  Then I headed over to the spot where each year, we see the Harbor Seals.  As I noted last year:

Named common seal throughout Europe, this seal frequently observed around Long Island lives along the shores of eastern Canada, New England and in the winter, as far south as the Carolinas in a variety of habitats. Their scientific name loosely means “sea calf” or “sea dog.” This latter nickname is well suited as these seals closely resemble a dog when their head is viewed at the surface of the water.

HSeals2W HSealsW

HSeals3W

These photos were shot through my spotting scope with the iPhone 5.  Hope to get back and see them again with Mary before we leave the area.  Happy Thanksgiving folks.

PhoneSkoping

I have pretty much transitioned to using my iPhone 5 for digiscoping using an attachment called a PhoneSkope. As I mentioned in a previous post, I always have my iPhone in my pocket and it’s a handy way to shoot through the scope. The quality gets better with each iteration of the phone, and an iPhone 6 may be on the not too distant horizon.

Each PhoneSkope is tailored for your camera and your scope. The cost is about $80 for case and adapter.

Each PhoneSkope is tailored for your camera and your scope. The cost is about $80 for case and adapter.

The setup is simple. You just put your phone or tablet into the case and attach it to the optic adapter by twisting and locking it in place. You then slide the optic adapter onto the end of your scope eye piece. It’s about a one-minute deal – I keep the case and adapter on the phone while I’m birding. (You can still use all functions of the phone.)

Here's what you see - and you can either photo or video, and change the scope setting to get in closer.

Here’s what you see – and you can either photo or video, and change the scope setting to get in closer.

There are lots of blog posts on using the iPhone (and other smart phones) so my suggestion is just to get out and shoot. It’s easy and even if there is some vignetting, you can reduce that through a finger swipe on the screen. The images are pretty good sized and  can be perfect for web work.

Here's what I lug around although I usually take the phone off the rig and zero in on the bird with the scope.

Here’s what I lug around although I usually take the phone off the rig and zero in on the bird with the scope.

Here are a couple of Mallards I got with the iPhone the other day -- nothing special but a nice easy shot as they cruised along.

Here are a couple of Mallards I got with the iPhone the other day — nothing special but a nice easy shot as they cruised along.

I know there are other adapters that folks use and like. PhoneSkope has worked well for me and I see that they have created them for the new iPhones and other tablets. Consider giving it a try – you’re likely carrying a pretty good camera in your pocket.

More iPhone Practice

I went up to Lamoille County yesterday to see if any waterfowl had shown up. Nothing new but a nice assortment of birds, many of which I couldn’t catch in the scope. Best birds were a Sharp-shinned Hawk right overhead and several handsome White-Crowned Sparrows. The lighting was not great but I did some more shooting with the scope and iPhone. (I’m not going to put every practice session up – this is it except for special birds or great shots.)

A Great Blue Heron hunting while a Mallard cruises by in poor early light.

A Great Blue Heron hunting while a Mallard cruises by in poor early light.

A White-Crowned Sparrow moving through the shrubbery.

A White-Crowned Sparrow feeding on the shrubbery.

There were dozens of sparrows moving here and there. Can you find the three in this bush?

There were dozens of sparrows moving here and there. Can you find the three in this bush?

When we returned home, I set up in the back yard for a while to get some feeder birds.

This Blue Jay, one of the eight or ten who hang out here, is giving me and my scope the hairy eyeball.

This Blue Jay, one of the eight or ten who hang out here, is giving me and my scope the hairy eyeball.

What's not to love about White-breasted Nuthatches?

What’s not to love about White-breasted Nuthatches?

And through it all, the Viszla was in stealth mode, watching the parade of birds as well as a foraging chipmunk. If her nose looks a little browner than usual, it’s the result of some major Fall excavation projects she has underway.

PennyW

Digiscoping Practice Session

I have been dabbling with digiscoping — shooting photos through my telescope — for a number of years.  I’ve used several good SLR cameras, a good digital point-and-shoot, and most recently, my iPhone. Once I bought the Canon SX-50 I gave up trying to digiscope since that camera works so well for me. I sold my good camera and the adapters that were needed to connect it to the scope.

As I watch the improvement in iPhone cameras, I’ve started to revisit that option of photography since I’m really looking for help with bird identification and for shots to illustrate this blog. I’m a birder, not a bird photographer.

As I plan our upcoming trip, I realize that I’ll be looking at a lot of waterfowl and shorebirds and be lugging my scope everywhere.  The Canon SX-50 is good but one more piece of gear to carry and I always have my iPhone in my pocket — so why not use it? I have an adapter from PhoneSkope for my iPhone 5 so yesterday, I took the rig out and did some practice shooting.

A couple of Killdeer were foraging along the Winooski River.

A couple of Killdeer were foraging along the Winooski River.

I spent a little time at Wrightsville Reservoir where an American Crow ignored me as I got out of the truck and let the dog run.

CrowW

There were a number of sparrows moving in and out of the brush, providing a pretty good challenge to getting them in the scope and shooting before they flitted on. There’s quite a crop of White-throated Sparrows this year.

WTSP2WThere were about eight or ten Northern Flickers feeding and flying off as we moved along. They must be gathering for their winter trip down south, although a few may stick around. They were less than cooperative but here are two shots:

Flickr2W Flickr1W

Penny, who is camera-shy, could not figure out what I was doing as she watched from afar.

Penny, who is camera-shy, could not figure out what I was doing as she watched from afar. Not the image of the left ear – the wind was moving it up and down and the iPhone camera speed did not stop it.

Later, we went for a walk in our woods where I grabbed this shot of one of her “friends” who sat, seemingly out of sight, but not for the telescope.

RedSW

So, it was a good outing and even though some of the photos are unclear and I missed many shots due to “always moving” birds (a winter wren taunted me as it bounced further and further into the underbrush), I am going to keep practicing.  Many birders across the country are quite adept and the newer 5S and iPhone 6 cameras have even more capability. I’ll still use my SX-50 for a lot of shooting but if I’m going to lug the scope, the iPhone is likely the way to go. Stay tuned.