Digiscoped Birds Galleries

Keel-billed toucan photographed at Tikal, near Temple #4.

Web wizards Katherine Koch and Amy Wells, who keep the BWD website humming, are creating two new photo galleries on the site for my digiscoped bird images. They will feature images gathered from two recent birding trips, one to Guatemala and one to South Africa. In gathering the images together, I found out just how fast the learning curve can be for digiscoping. With digiscoping, just like regular photography, you learn by taking lots of really bad photographs.

When I was in South Africa in 2002, I digiscoped lots of birds, but few of the images came out. I didn't understand the basic field craft of digiscoping--and in some ways I still don't. But most of my 2002 South Africa images were out of focus and/or overexposed. I got excited with cooperative birds and zoomed my scope way up thinking I'd get larger birds in the frame. Instead all I got were blurry birds in the frame. I also didn't;t understand the advantages of stopping down the exposure setting using the Program (or "P") mode on my camera. Once I figured this out (thanks to some useful advice from fellow digiscoper Kevin McGowan on my recent trip to SA) I was much happier with my results shooting in South Africa's bright light.

Looking through my "best" Guatemala images I can see that this advice would have been useful back in March on that Central American trip. Once again most of my images were overexposed or slightly out of focus. Well, I'll just have to go back and re-shoot some of those cooperative Guatemalan birds.

Look for the new digiscoped birds galleries to appear on the BWD site in the near future. There will also be a new batch of images for the Swarovski Digiscoping Gallery coming soon.
And I promise to do a post tomorrow about my basic digiscoping rig.

Glossy starling taken at Mkuze Game Reserve.

Why "Blacksmith" Plover?

Blacksmith plovers (Vanellus armatus) are fairly common birds in South Africa. In fact they were among the first and last birds I observed on both trips there--they are in wetlands near the Johannesburg airport.

But I never knew why they were called blacksmith plovers. I had always assumed that the plover's all-black front resembled a smithy's apron, and that's where the name came from.
While birding along Muzi Pan in Zululand, near the St. Lucia Wetlands complex, our group saw several small flocks of blacksmith plovers. We digiscoped a few new individuals and then moved on to other species. But it wasn't until one of the plover flocks flew over me that I had a eureka! moment about the species' name.

Tink! Tink! Tink-tink! Tink! Their flight calls sounded exactly like a blacksmith's hammer striking metal. And now I know how the blacksmith plover got its name.

The Song in My Head

Just a Ride
by Jem
from the album Finally Woken

This happy little pop tune is so catchy, not only was I forced to buy it from ITunes, I also added it to the set list for the upcoming August 5 show by the Swinging Orangutangs.

Where would this world be without happy little pop tunes? Here are the lyrics. And here is Jem's website. Turns out she's Welsh. I'm glad she's not singing in Welsh.

I initially thought about using an image of a long dusty road, stretching off into the distance--a subject I love to photograph. But then I remembered this image of a cattle egret "enjoying the ride" on the back of a swimming hippo, and it somehow seemed right.

I photographed these two unlikely friends at Nsumo Pan in Mkuze Game Reserve. Nsumo was perhaps my single favorite spot on my South Africa trip. Watch for a post or two on Nsumo/Mkuze coming soon to BOTB.

In the meantime, I wish you a happy pop tune for your head.