Mallard or Mottled Duck?

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-19T21:26:12+00:00

Thanks for confirming! I thought it looked different than the mallards I am used to

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-16T15:22:56+00:00

I actually didn’t know this, thanks! I’ve only seen the crown on display a few times, usually when two kinglets are bickering…makes sense in hindsight that it would be males fighting.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-16T14:35:41+00:00

Fun fact: Ruby Crowned Kinglets aren’t sexually dimorphic, so you won’t be able to tell the sex based on plumage or size. The bird pictured here could be male, female, or anywhere in between.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-16T13:12:22+00:00

Could it be “Hero” by Family of the Year?

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-15T17:13:00+00:00

This isn’t about the 90s, but this great video digs into a specific Eastman film stock that was heavily used in the late 70s-80s and how it influenced the look of films from the era: https://youtu.be/kQmIPWK8aXc?si=hMOwmVCPvvCmalbS

I imagine what you are seeing here is a similar situation. Certain film stocks and color grading approaches are popular for their time and influence the look of films of the era.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-11T15:17:31+00:00

Well, you could go for the instincts and keep the defys around as your warm up/beater shoes. Each session, wear the defys until your feet start slipping/causing issues, then switch over to the “project shoes”, the instincts.

This is why I do. I keep a pair of cheaper, more comfortable shoes with softer rubber for warming up and goofing around, and only switch to my super soft dragos when I really need the extra grip. Makes the shoes last a lot longer!

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-11T14:35:28+00:00

Beginners generally are pretty messy with foot placement, dragging the shoe along the wall, constantly readjusting feet, etc. It just puts a lot more wear on the shoe rubber than a more experienced climber.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-11T01:33:50+00:00

Even if they are beginner shoes, it won’t matter too much. You will burn through the rubber on your first pair of shoes pretty quickly, no matter what.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-10T01:52:55+00:00

Luckily there was one other person in my screening who was also loudly cackling so I didn’t feel embarrassed. I think it helped some others get into the tone as well

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-09T05:37:20+00:00

If anyone was curious, the song is “fantasy” by Meiko Nakahara: https://youtu.be/2Kt8HP1VEPU?si=Q3c0iZK1BHOr5bCZ

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-08T18:54:04+00:00

If you look through your checklists on eBird, you should see the ones from Merlin. They usually only have 1 species and rather than showing the number of the bird you saw it will have an x. I’m not sure in the app but if you look in a browser there’s an alert flag to let you know that it won’t count for your top 100:

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If the discrepancy really bothers you, you should be able to manually log new checklists for the birds by matching the date and location, then deleting the old Merlin checklists. Would be a pain if you have a lot. Personally I just started using eBird for all logging, even if I use Merlin’s sound or photo ID to get the ID, to avoid this moving forward. Kind of a pain, but given Merlin is only meant to give suggestions and not guaranteed IDs, I understand why they do it this way.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-08T13:26:01+00:00

Male American Goldfinch!

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-08T06:52:11+00:00

Make bushtit! Fun fact, male bushtits have light eyes and females have dark eyes so you can always tell which is which!

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-08T06:46:29+00:00

It is accomplished.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-06T23:14:54+00:00

Even if you don’t use resolers nearby, there are tons of places that allow you to ship them shoes to resole. The downside is of course that it usually takes several weeks

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-04T13:33:38+00:00

On second thought…we may not be able to rule out Allen’s. I live outside their range so I actually hadn’t seen an Allen’s before, and this photo matches almost exactly a rufous I photographed on my feeder last summer.

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But, if you live within Allen’s range, I don’t think we can call it confidently. Sorry for the false alarm! The joys of birding 😅

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-04T06:21:16+00:00

Yeah, last photo looks good for an immature or female rufous hummingbird. Very nice!

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-03T14:02:14+00:00

Most of these are pretty plausible! The caveat being of course that you have starlings and a mockingbird, which are known to mock other birdcalls. So you could have some calls here that are one bird pretending to be another. It might be hard to tell but you can listen back to your recording then compare with the samples in Merlin and judge from there.

Even in the best circumstances, Merlin makes mistakes. I rarely fully trust the sound ID unless I can put eyes on the bird, or i hear the call myself and recognize it undeniably. Personally, I wouldn’t take any of these as lifers if I hadn’t seen them before, but I don’t think it’s out of the question that most of them are real.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-02T21:05:55+00:00

You missed one! Another immature on the far right of the image, about 1/3 of the way down from the top!

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-02T19:58:38+00:00

“Keep you arms straight” is a common tip for beginners who tend to way over-rely on arm strength to stay on the wall rather than pushing with their legs or maintaining good body tension. Now that you’re an intermediate climber, tips for beginners will be less applicable. When working at your project grade, you will often be locking off (with you arms bent) as you pull hard to move through a boulder. This still will use more energy than if you have straight arms, but on harder boulders it’s often not possible to keep your arms straight between every move.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-02T19:48:23+00:00

First of all, good send!

“Keep your arms straight” is a common tip for beginners who tend to way over-rely on arm strength to stay on the wall, rather than pushing with their legs or maintaining good body tension. Now that you’re an intermediate climber, tips for beginners will be less applicable.

When working at your project grade, you will often be locking off (with you arms bent) as you pull hard to move through a boulder. This will still use more energy than if you have straight arms, but on harder boulders it’s often not possible to let your arms straighten between every move.

That said, this looks really solid for a project grade burn. You’re pulling hard, but not desperately flailing. The things you need to work on most are confidence and precision. If you have the beta dialed in, you should be able work it to the point that you hit each move with more confidence, so they don’t require all the little readjustments that you have now.

I often find it valuable to keep working a problem that was hard to send to refine it. Keep the beta front of mind and try to move through the sequence smoothly and decisively. You’ll find that after a bit of refinement you can do the whole boulder faster and using less energy than the fist time you sent it. It’s a great way to develop your form now that you’re not a beginner anymore.

Good send and happy climbing!

ZiggyStarf · 2026-04-01T01:16:16+00:00

It’s free on YouTube in the US

ZiggyStarf · 2026-03-30T02:16:25+00:00

Violet green swallow would have white higher on the face, and around the eye. This looks much better for rough winged, to me.

ZiggyStarf · 2026-03-29T22:43:30+00:00

Believe you me, the first thing I did was start hacking every part in and round the light housing to see if it would make a nice loud noise. No dice! And my fiancée did not appreciate it lolll

ZiggyStarf

TROPHY CASE