radiosky's Journal

Don't read this if a discussion of animal cruelty will upset you.

Recently I was IDing fish here on iNaturalist and ran across a reference to Knob Creek in Kentucky. I was suddenly transported to a time 45 years ago when as a young fish collector I visited that little creek. I was alone, as I often was when collecting. I don't remember the exact location but it wasn't a long walk from the road when I walked out of the woods to the most horrific sight. I won't graphically describe it, but there in the creek someone had disposed of their excess dogs and cats in an act of sadism that defies my ability to comprehend. There were probably twenty animals, some lying in the creek. I felt as though dropped into a horror movie, but the was no shrieking strings, just the sound of the creek, that gurgled like a drowning man.. Though the scene was at least a couple of days old and the perpetrators would be long gone, I became fearful. I left.

I didn't report it. I don't even know how seriously the police would have taken me back then. There was no talk of animal rights, though I know there were cruelty laws. Today, I think it would be different. People would be horrified, as they should be. For that I am grateful. I grew up in a crueler world than exists today. This memory has re-haunted me many times over the years. I have thought about going back to Knob Creek to confront those ghosts, but so far, have not had the courage.

This camera runs about $500, which is about all I can justify for my need, which is to simply document the living things I see. I don't expect to win any contests or end up on peoples walls. So I think I am much happier with camera than the $300 Panasonic. It is easier for me to focus, though it is a bit heavier and more un-wieldy. These are some of my first pictures with the P900. The indigo bunting was at least 70 meters away, only a dot to the naked eye. Having that much telephoto ability is going to require some practice with steadying by hand.

I sent back the Panasonic $300 camera. I just could not get the auto-focus to work. What I need is a camera that can compensate for my inexperience with digital SLRs. So I now have the Nikon CoolPix P900, which gets top ratings from some birder sites. Just messing around, the auto-focus does seem to work a bit better. Hope this works, because I cannot spend more money on a camera than I do my average car.

New icon - Yellow Billed Cuckoo

My pictures have been dreadful. So I found the least expensive camera that had good reviews from birders and purchased it for about $300 new. It is a Panasonic Lumix DC-Fz80 DSLR which has a good optical zoom and important for me, it is very light. However, I am not sure I really like it because I have such a terrible time focusing it. Probably just my ineptitude, but if I can't master this I may return it.

By luck, I did get a good picture of a Yellow Billed Cuckoo from quite far away.

It is still pandemic time, but with great care we had to make a short visit to the Tampa area of Florida, in mid May 2020. I haven't traveled much, but Florida is my favorite place for wildlife. Hawaii, where I spend most of my tropical days is a species desert compared to Florida. Yet Florida has some serious challenges precisely because it is so conducive to life. Whenever I put my dip net in a body of water in Florida, I am almost as likely to pull up an exotic as a native species. The stream bottoms are heavily scoured by South American catfishes, the trees dotted with parakeets. In a few hours of a few days I was overwhelmed by the variety of things I saw. I am left wishing fo see more but without the energy or skill to record even a small fraction of it all. I hope to be better prepared with a good camera for birds (so someone will believe that was seeing blue-crowned parakeets). and also a better system for photographing aquatic things.