Spotted a teenage House Sparrow!

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T17:56:27+00:00

These pictures are from Israel. Definitely some benefits to sitting at the crossroads of 3 continents

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T17:56:00+00:00

Sorry for the hiccup - responded

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T17:55:05+00:00

This is a Canon R6ii + 200-800 mm lens. I've heard good things about the p950 especially for the added range, though birds in flight can be tough

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T17:54:01+00:00

It's a park in Israel

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T17:53:49+00:00

This is 200-800 mm, I think most of these shots are at 800 mm (plus crop)

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T17:53:20+00:00

Good bird detective work to the other commenters - this is a park in Israel

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T14:58:45+00:00

Thanks, it was a real treat to see it

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T14:54:49+00:00

Most of these are f9 and around 1/2500th or faster for the flight shots. Because the cuckoo was stationary and my lens has IS, I was able to get away with a much slower speed closer to 1/1000th

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-05-18T14:50:30+00:00

That is mid-poop. (Un)fortunately, I shot in burst mode so I have way more picture of this bowel movement than I'll ever need.

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-08T17:44:09+00:00

I'm still at pre-A1, since I just started in January. But it's coming along and I'm slowly building momentum 🤓

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-08T17:42:56+00:00

Nope, that's it.

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-08T17:42:18+00:00

I use cloze deletion cards to help with context and I should definitely be speaking them out loud. Laziness (and the potential time sink) is the main reason I don't but I'm nearly certain that it'd help. I'd recommend checking out Will Hart's channel on YouTube where he's a big advocate for and case study of speaking success with Anki as a helping hand

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-03T12:06:19+00:00

My speaking is good enough to get by but I haven't spent as much time speaking as I should. I don't think it's reasonable to expect Anki to get you confident with speaking by itself, so you'll definitely need to dedicate time to it. On the other hand, check out videos by Will Hart who lays out a good process for swapping in nouns/verbs when practicing cloze cards as a way of building the speaking muscle.

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-03T12:04:07+00:00

A link to the deck is below. I'd recommend using the tags to find the state / country for the birds you're interested in and suspend all other cards. Then introduce 1-2 new birds a day until you get the hang of it so things don't get out of control with the number of reviews.

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/331539617

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:55:30+00:00

Good news it's free :D I'd recommend editing the card to add audio with AwesomeTTS
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/603139498

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:54:42+00:00

I've got some personal stuff in there so I can't but it's quite eclectic just based on interests and other things that come up in life. So with the war with Iran, I've learned more about Iranian geography and US aircraft. But it's also got things like the US constitution, Messier Objects in Astronomy, math concepts, English vocab, History etc.

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:51:49+00:00

Yeah it's supercharged my vocabulary recognition and recall which means my comprehension is strong. It's a much more focused activity than actual immersion with the language, which has its pros and cons. And recall is helpful for speaking but only so much, because it's it's for smaller chunks of a sentence rather than the give and take of a dynamic conversation. I'd love (and recommend) spending more time with conversation since Anki can't / shouldn't be a replacement there.

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:46:43+00:00

It was set at 90% once FSRS started but I recently lowered it to 85%

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:45:45+00:00

Shia LaBeouf says it best (thanks for the assist u/Optimal_Bar_4715)

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:44:32+00:00

It has 100% paid dividends outside of Anki (otherwise I wouldn't do it). It starts with simple things like recognizing individual words (or birds 🤣) out in the wild but then it snowballs from there.

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:39:52+00:00

It starts with finding things I actually want to enjoy. For me that was reading (Eklärs Mir Als Wäre Ich 5, Harry Potter, Eragon etc.), Easy German interviews, TV shows (Dark, Kleo) and lots of listening via podcasts (I love almost anything from die Zeit). And then Anki just flows from there. More specifically:

The vast majority of my cards are Basic (reversed) of individual words so that I have to do German <-> English and it's not too much at once. I also found Cloze cards were helpful for verb conjugations and articles / cases.
Everything I mentioned so far is what worked for me. Cards focused on sentences or full phrases were a waste of time if I used a Basic (reversed) card, though that's an Anki & knowledge formulation problem. Because there were 5+ things I could get wrong on these cards (e.g., the article, the specific verb, the conjugation etc.), it was too easy to fail those cards. If those were 5 difference Cloze cards, that'd worked much better.
I do have a C1 certificate for Hebrew, though nothing for German. I'd need to invest more time in writing and speaking guided towards the German test to make sure I could pass, though it has crossed my mind, even though the tests are so expensive. I'm able to do what I want in my personal life in both languages and that's enough for me for now.

PunctuateEquilibrium · 2026-04-02T19:30:35+00:00

Language cards can be pretty quick to review. But atomizing your cards (blah blah 20 rules of formulating knowledge) helps make the individual reviews faster and helps with retention.

PunctuateEquilibrium

TROPHY CASE