What about the birds?
User Rhartnett wrote in earlier this week with a great question: "I’m curious as to why I see so few birds on these pictures. So far only turkeys and two or three flying blobs. With all the vegetation I’d expect to see the occasional perching bird, like maybe a red-winged blackbird in the cattails. Is just poor luck or maybe the wind blown movement on most of the “nothing there” shot scares them off?"
Many of you may be wondering the same thing. We've all had those classification days where it feels like we're going deer, deer, grass, bison, grass, grass, grass, deer, grass, bison, deer......with nary a sign of a bird! With 240 species of birds recorded at Cedar Creek (you can see the annotated checklist here - we're in the process of updating it, so the total isn't quite accurate), shouldn't we be spotting a few more of them on the cameras?
First off, we have had some luck with birds on the cameras. Bird-loving classifier mterrell has been collecting one representative photo of each of the species that she's seen come up on cameras as an official Zooniverse Collection and is up to 29! You can see her collection here on the Eyes on the Wild Collections page. It's pretty impressive!
That total of 29 species is not too shabby. If you think about it, the cams aren't really positioned to capture waterfowl, shorebirds (besides sandhill cranes), nocturnal birds (though we have had a couple of awesome owl shots!) or rare migrants. Part of it is luck - since birds can move in three dimensions rather than the land-based two that us mammals are restricted to, it's easier for them to be in places that avoid the cameras, like up in the air above the 3ft high view of the lens (though sometimes we get lucky and get great shots like that too - like this flying trumpeter swan!).
I haven't noticed any evidence that they are being scared off by the vegetation movement or camera noise - on the contrary, some of them seem really intrigued by it! We've had some extremely up close shots of chickadees, and for a while had one camera that was constantly being mobbed by tree swallows! So luck goes both ways, I guess! One of my personal favorite sets is of an upside-down goldfinch in front of one of the cams that often just captures grass. I also really love the hunting kestrel that volunteers found!
At first glance, the current season doesn't seem to have much avian life outside of turkeys and cranes, but there are a few places to keep an extra close eye out for bird life. One is on pictures that have fences - the grazing exclosures and bison fence make excellent perches for some of our smaller bird species, so look closely for them! Pictures of bison are always often hiding bird life. Brown-headed cowbirds and other insect eaters tend to congregate around the herd and forage on the insects the bison kick up. You often have to look very closely though - birds often turn up in only one of the three frames presented to you, especially if they are on the wing! I'm hopeful that the next season of images will also showcase some of our birds They are really fun to find!
Do you have a favorite bird from the cameras? Let us know in the comments!
Many of you may be wondering the same thing. We've all had those classification days where it feels like we're going deer, deer, grass, bison, grass, grass, grass, deer, grass, bison, deer......with nary a sign of a bird! With 240 species of birds recorded at Cedar Creek (you can see the annotated checklist here - we're in the process of updating it, so the total isn't quite accurate), shouldn't we be spotting a few more of them on the cameras?
First off, we have had some luck with birds on the cameras. Bird-loving classifier mterrell has been collecting one representative photo of each of the species that she's seen come up on cameras as an official Zooniverse Collection and is up to 29! You can see her collection here on the Eyes on the Wild Collections page. It's pretty impressive!
That total of 29 species is not too shabby. If you think about it, the cams aren't really positioned to capture waterfowl, shorebirds (besides sandhill cranes), nocturnal birds (though we have had a couple of awesome owl shots!) or rare migrants. Part of it is luck - since birds can move in three dimensions rather than the land-based two that us mammals are restricted to, it's easier for them to be in places that avoid the cameras, like up in the air above the 3ft high view of the lens (though sometimes we get lucky and get great shots like that too - like this flying trumpeter swan!).
I haven't noticed any evidence that they are being scared off by the vegetation movement or camera noise - on the contrary, some of them seem really intrigued by it! We've had some extremely up close shots of chickadees, and for a while had one camera that was constantly being mobbed by tree swallows! So luck goes both ways, I guess! One of my personal favorite sets is of an upside-down goldfinch in front of one of the cams that often just captures grass. I also really love the hunting kestrel that volunteers found!
At first glance, the current season doesn't seem to have much avian life outside of turkeys and cranes, but there are a few places to keep an extra close eye out for bird life. One is on pictures that have fences - the grazing exclosures and bison fence make excellent perches for some of our smaller bird species, so look closely for them! Pictures of bison are always often hiding bird life. Brown-headed cowbirds and other insect eaters tend to congregate around the herd and forage on the insects the bison kick up. You often have to look very closely though - birds often turn up in only one of the three frames presented to you, especially if they are on the wing! I'm hopeful that the next season of images will also showcase some of our birds They are really fun to find!
Do you have a favorite bird from the cameras? Let us know in the comments!
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