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Zim Girl's (very tiny) Big Year 2018


Zim Girl

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So having thought about doing this and chickening out many times I am finally taking the plunge!!

I have been totally inspired by the likes of @michael-ibk, @xelas, @Dave Williams, @TonyQ and all the other excellent BY'ers.  Your pictures are all stunning and I have learnt a lot just from following your BY threads.

However, I am a complete birding novice and I cannot possibly match any of you for quality and quantity of pictures, but I thought it would be fun to see where I can get to.

So please let me know if I get any ID's wrong and I apologise in advance for the ramblings of a total beginner.

 

For the first time ever, I left the house on Friday with the sole intention of trying to photograph birds.  I went to the nearest big park and was surprised to get 14 different species. Had to give in after an hour and a half because my fingers froze with the cold!!  I am not going to put them all up as I am hoping to get better pics of some of them later on.  Progress will be slow until the weather gets warmer I think!

 

"EBC's"  -  I get what it means (I think), but what on earth does it stand for??

 

 

 

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1.  Long Tailed Tit

P1000620c.jpg.4045e890fa9a684af5c5f46f18287f21.jpg

 

P1000622c.jpg.811a7f92793dadc976f517b2cfde33e6.jpg

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

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2.  Great Tit

P1000628c.jpg.c270a38975e706bd5cad1b23776c908b.jpg

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

 

Edited by Zim Girl
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3.  Canada Goose

P1000709.JPG.7569ea73027aff37e899bdb92cefdd61.JPG

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

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@Zim Girl Welcome on board. We were completely new to birding at the start of 2016 Big Year and are still learning lots from the more experienced birders. The main aim is to get out more looking at birds, and to enjoy it. Beware, it can become addictive.

 

I have found everyone to be very supportive. So have fun.

EBC stands for Every Bird Counts - photo not very clear perhaps

Added:

We were posting at the same time- that is a great start with lovely photos. The Long Tailed Tits are beautiful.

Edited by TonyQ
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4.  Great Crested Grebe

P1000646c.jpg.4dbec6186262362a4218bdef7965a45c.jpg

 

P1000682c.jpg.239bff25d8dad88c7691c52a90cf3fb4.jpg

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

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Now I really like these guys with their comedy feet.

 

5.  Coot

P1000699c.jpg.89003ed4a54956a9987182a8ce45d04f.jpg

 

P1000702.JPG.342d1ab6a07a31d5abb29d1c9458af3d.JPG

 

P1000704.JPG.f2e390bfef901b0e7ac03e5cb7474398.JPG

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

Edited by Zim Girl
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6.  Ring-necked Parakeet

P1000607c.jpg.06584e2488a27fa1c0aaaa8f2270eada.jpg

 

P1000614c.jpg.13407872595b06e369f15879af87e78b.jpg

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

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Not the sharpest picture but these things move so fast I might not get a better one.

 

7.  Wren

P1000726c.jpg.970ba3a2e4c9eac2b00c035fa6ed8c83.jpg

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

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So I am at the pond trying to get some ducks and I see these and think I am sure I have seen something like this on the BY's.

Black and white with a bright eye  -  is it a Goldeneye??

Back home I google it and turns out it isn't, my duck has a tuft on it's head, so I google tufted duck to see if I can find it.

Would you believe it, it is actually a Tufted Duck. This identifying birds lark is easier than I thought, I will use the 'say what you see' method in future.

 

8.  Tufted Duck

P1000736c.thumb.jpg.55f060455901fe9b61066e503b63e15a.jpg

Stanley Park, Blackpool - 23/02/18

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18 minutes ago, TonyQ said:

@Zim Girl Welcome on board. We were completely new to birding at the start of 2016 Big Year and are still learning lots from the more experienced birders. The main aim is to get out more looking at birds, and to enjoy it. Beware, it can become addictive.

 

I have found everyone to be very supportive. So have fun.

EBC stands for Every Bird Counts - photo not very clear perhaps

 

Thank you @TonyQ

 

Oh I see, well I think I will have many EBC's to throw in at the end :)

 

It is already addictive.  We were out walking on Saturday morning (without camera) and saw a Dipper on the river  -  note to self  -  take camera with you at all times!!

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Zim Girl said:

 

Would you believe it, it is actually a Tufted Duck. This identifying birds lark is easier than I thought, I will use the 'say what you see' method in future.

 

 

@Zim Girl you should try speaking Afrikaans - say what you see mostly works there!! Sometimes in the bird world it doesn't though. Some annoying birds are named after a small patch of colour, when they have much more prominent colours elsewhere!! However, google usually works well, otherwise you can just ask your riendly fellow BYers on ST. As a "more experienced" BY participant, I have never seen a dipper, so you are already ahead of me...

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Hey Angie, what a nice surprise, delighted that you´ve joined in. Like Tony said, many of us knew nothing about birding at the start, but you will see that it´s really a fun activity walking around and getting more attentive. And you will be surprised that the world around you consists of so much more than just Tits and Blackbirds. Lovely photos of the Long-Tailed Tits (I really like these birds), and the Wren is fine - they are tricky to get good shots of indeed.

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Dave Williams

Nothing wrong with your photos whatsoever! Great to see you joining in too. Along with @Galana the three of us have Liverpool Bay covered!

 

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Welcome. If you look back at the older threads, you will clearly see that we were all beginners once. You have made a great start!

 

And then there are some slow learners (like me) along as well...

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As the others we were all beginners once. I only got back into birds on a trip to Africa to see Mammals and two 'experts' were arguing the toss over Red-billed or Yellow-billed Oxpecker on a giraffe. I was hooked again.

And there are two more for the "say what you see" school of birding!

 

Covering Liverpool Bay is all well and good but most of my sector is Irish Sea.

Welcome @Zim Girl. You have learned lesson one although it does look odd in the Tesco checkout queue.

Edited by Galana
Correcting text.
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What a pleasant surprise, Angie! Be aware that birding is like visiting Africa: once you start you can never stop! Your photos are very good; if you have some inclination to do some sort of post processing, add more colours (saturation) and some contrast. But overall they are very decent photos.

 

EBC been explained, I must find out who used that acronym first on safaritalk

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19 hours ago, Tdgraves said:

 

@Zim Girl you should try speaking Afrikaans - say what you see mostly works there!! Sometimes in the bird world it doesn't though. Some annoying birds are named after a small patch of colour, when they have much more prominent colours elsewhere!! However, google usually works well, otherwise you can just ask your riendly fellow BYers on ST. As a "more experienced" BY participant, I have never seen a dipper, so you are already ahead of me...

 

@Tdgraves  It did just tickle me that what was meant to be a general google search was actually the name of the duck.

Interesting you have never seen a Dipper, we know of several places in our area where we have seen them in the past. Mind you getting a picture is another thing all together.

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18 hours ago, michael-ibk said:

Hey Angie, what a nice surprise, delighted that you´ve joined in. Like Tony said, many of us knew nothing about birding at the start, but you will see that it´s really a fun activity walking around and getting more attentive. And you will be surprised that the world around you consists of so much more than just Tits and Blackbirds. Lovely photos of the Long-Tailed Tits (I really like these birds), and the Wren is fine - they are tricky to get good shots of indeed.

 

@michael-ibk

Thanks Michael, the long-tailed tits are a very pretty little bird, we see quite a few on our feeders in the garden as well.

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18 hours ago, Dave Williams said:

Nothing wrong with your photos whatsoever! Great to see you joining in too. Along with @Galana the three of us have Liverpool Bay covered!

 

 

Thanks @Dave Williams, you are very kind!

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18 hours ago, Peter Connan said:

Welcome. If you look back at the older threads, you will clearly see that we were all beginners once. You have made a great start!

 

And then there are some slow learners (like me) along as well...

 

Thank you @Peter Connan

Mmm, if you are slow, I think I may be going backwards  -  your pictures are wonderful.

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16 hours ago, Galana said:

As the others we were all beginners once. I only got back into birds on a trip to Africa to see Mammals and two 'experts' were arguing the toss over Red-billed or Yellow-billed Oxpecker on a giraffe. I was hooked again.

And there are two more for the "say what you see" school of birding!

 

Covering Liverpool Bay is all well and good but most of my sector is Irish Sea.

Welcome @Zim Girl. You have learned lesson one although it does look odd in the Tesco checkout queue.

 

Thanks @Galana

Yes indeed, but actually we get a lot of pied wagtails in our local Tesco car park so maybe not!!

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14 hours ago, xelas said:

What a pleasant surprise, Angie! Be aware that birding is like visiting Africa: once you start you can never stop! Your photos are very good; if you have some inclination to do some sort of post processing, add more colours (saturation) and some contrast. But overall they are very decent photos.

 

EBC been explained, I must find out who used that acronym first on safaritalk

 

@xelas

Thanks Alex, I did actually download the post processing software that came with the camera (Panasonic SilkyPix) so I could crop some of the pictures before posting them. So now I just need to remember to shoot in raw and I can follow your very welcome advice.

 

If EBC is a ST expression it will explain why google wasn't helping me!!

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@Zim Girl you can use this basic settings also on JPEG files; but shooting RAW is better as this type of file has much larger latitude for post processing. 

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3 hours ago, xelas said:

@Zim Girl you can use this basic settings also on JPEG files; but shooting RAW is better as this type of file has much larger latitude for post processing. 

 

But it does mean that every single photo does require some time spent in post-processing. Make sure you are happy to accept that commitment before you change...

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