Peanuts In My Pocket

I went birding again this morning. I have a regular route I like to follow each month. It includes the nature center at El Dorado Park in Long Beach and the nearby duck and turtle pond. My target species was hummingbirds, which are very difficult to photograph in the wild, so I took advantage of the feeder at the nature center. I managed to capture what I believe is a rufous hummingbird. I’m waiting for a birder with color vision to verify the ID for me.

Yes, I’m color blind and don’t have great vision. I’m also partially deaf, so birding can be a real challenge. I rely heavily on my camera for most identifications. My process is simple: take the best possible photo and then submit it to AI for help. I use three tools:

1. Apple Photos, which has a decent AI that can identify birds fairly accurately.
2. Merlin Bird ID, which is excellent but takes more time. I find it more accurate and more helpful than Apple Photos, though it’s not perfect.
3. ChatGPT, which also has identification capabilities. Plus, there’s a birding encyclopedia that helps me better understand what I’m looking at.

The funny thing is, every time I identify a rare bird using all three tools, the reviewers at eBird tend to disagree. For now, I trust the experts, but I’m hopeful that one day my camera will simply tell me what I’m shooting. That day is probably not far off—I’ve already seen a pair of binoculars that can do it.

For birds I know well, there’s no need for AI. I can focus on taking quality photos instead of just trying to capture an image for identification. The duck pond at El Dorado Park is home to a large population of black-crowned night herons. I love these birds—they’re striking and beautiful. There were at least ten scattered around the pond today, and I was able to take quite a few great photos.

I think of black-crowned night herons as birds that like to pose. I rarely see them in flight and almost always find them perched on a branch or, more commonly at the duck pond, sitting on trash cans. If only an orange warbler would drop down from the canopy and strike a pose for me. One can dream.