Avian Ecologist

Best Birds of 2020

Goodbye, Upper Midwest Though I hadn’t yet gotten official notice, I was pretty sure this was going to be my last year at NRRI. I had known my funding was running out and there weren’t any new grants in sight. So, I made the best of it by starting off the birding year immersing myself […]

Selner Park

Today was Paul’s CBC, so I was a pinch hitter for a friend who couldn’t make it. I covered his part, which included this nice hilltop park. I walked up the steps from the parking lot to scan the harbor. After I covered that section, Paul and I met up to finish out our part […]

Sheboygan Indian Mounds

We went to Indian Mound park today and walked part of the mounds trail. We must have gone off trail somewhere (hard to tell in the snow) but we ended up crossing the footbridge and coming up the nature trail back to the parking area. Then, we walked part of the trail at Fischer Creek […]

December Rare Birds of Wisconsin

Reposting this because as of this evening, we’ve arrived for the remainder of the holidays! This isn’t a risk we’d ordinarily take in times like these, but some logistics need to be tended to, one of which is running my partner’s CBC. So, here’s hoping for some great birds in the coming week! This is […]

New Camera Tips

Here, someone was asking about a photo they took of a backlit bird on a cloudy day with my same camera + lens. I pulled quotes from some of the comments… “I usually shoot in Manual mode. I try to set my ISO at anywhere from 640-1000 on cloudy days like today. Then I’ll adjust […]

RFI: new camera birding tips!

Model My dad passed his Canon EOS rebel T5 on to me for Christmas this year! I know it’s not the ideal wildlife cam, but I want to make the most of it on a budget. After reading the discouraging reviews, I was glad at least to find someone sharing their bird photo with this […]

CMPSP

We walked out to the bird blind on the boardwalk today, admiring the winter waterfowl!

Pelagic Do-Over

Today we went on a pelagic, which was spectacular! This time, I was spared from awful seasickness and got to fully enjoy the day. The temps ranged from the 30’s through the mid-50’s F (air temp from land) and sunny. As you would imagine, though, this was quite cold on a boat! Here’s what I […]

Pelagic

Today we went on a pelagic, which was amazing save for my first real bout of seasickness! I meant to give a thorough “gear review” for this post, but in reality, I was pretty distracted much of the trip. Taking note of how cold I felt was very much dwarfed by how sick I was. […]

Warfield Pond

Today, I took my partner for a walk around this local park.