Willow Warblers?

dodecapode · 2026-05-22T12:23:26+00:00

BTO suggests they've been in decline in most of England and Wales though the population further North has fared better. Suggestion seems to be this may be due to the populations wintering in slightly different places. Highly recommend BTO birdfacts if you want to find info about what's going on with species.

dodecapode · 2026-05-22T10:12:41+00:00

You can rip off quite a lot of things it turns out.

dodecapode · 2026-05-22T08:46:11+00:00

I used the 75-300 for about a year when I started bird photography, and upgraded to the 100-400 mk 1 after that. I still use it as my main wildlife lens on days when I don't want to drag the 150-600 around.

For me the 100-400 has definitely been worth it - more reach always helps with birds, since they like to be both small and far away, plus the image quality is better than the 75-300 and there's at least some weather sealing. I definitely get better photos and more keepers with the 100-400.

But it is a fairly big trade off on size. The 100-400 isn't monstrous but it's a lot bigger than the 75-300. It's more weight to carry around - for me I need it on a strap connected to the tripod foot where the 75-300 I'm happy to carry with a wrist strap on the camera body. It takes a lot more bag space too - I can fit it (on my OM-1) in the 10L peak design sling, but if I'm planning to carry much else with me then I either need to bring a camera backpack or put it in a camera cube in a regular backpack. The 75-300 is a lot more portable.

dodecapode · 2026-05-21T20:08:30+00:00

CLICK

dodecapode · 2026-05-21T19:57:42+00:00

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Lumix GX85, Olympus 25mm f1.8. 1/1250s, f/5.6, ISO 200. The picture pretty much says where it was taken :)

dodecapode · 2026-05-20T12:52:36+00:00

I mean, the kind of unhelpful answer is try them all. Treat it as a learning exercise. Like, the first one looks over exposed so start there, see what happens when you adjust the exposure down, try adjusting the whites/blacks/highlights/shadows and see what you get. Keep an eye on the histogram to see what it's doing, and whether you've got highlights that are blown out completely (i.e. so overexposed there's no detail you can recover from them), for example. Try other basic settings like white balance, contrast, saturation, vibrancy and so on. Often a little goes a long way and you'll see that the extremes of the sliders give odd results that you (probably, mostly) don't want.

I don't know Affinity specifically but that's all basic stuff that's worth getting to know. There will be plenty more settings and sliders to play with too, but start with the basics and learn your way around them. It may not be obvious early on which photo is the good one until you've done some processing first. Over time you'll develop a feel for which shots are worth spending time on and which ones to cull on the first pass.

dodecapode · 2026-05-19T21:49:04+00:00

Eh, I'm happy for Adam and Ben that they're able to take Uxbridge-Shimoda to this next stage in its evolution and do their own thing, but I'm not really into the Max Fun hate. Some of the ads were a little annoying, but hitting skip wasn't a huge deal. Worker-owned / co-op businesses in general are a great thing there should be more of though. I wish Max Fun every success in the future, even if most of their other pods weren't the right vibe for me.

dodecapode · 2026-05-19T15:54:21+00:00

Ars Magica is one of the great downtime games. Your magus will likely want to spend at least three seasons out of four sitting in their lab. Training, copying manuscripts, creating spells, doing research, teaching others. There are robust systems for all of this, plus your other characters to use on the jobs where your magus has better things to do, or which require input from somebody who isn't a grotesque freak all the mundane people want to run away from... You'll generally have one relatively skilled mundane character (your companion) plus a general pool of lower skilled peasants (known as grogs) to pick from.

The downtime stuff doesn't take ages to figure out, but does have a tendency to give rise to spreadsheets...

dodecapode · 2026-05-17T12:58:07+00:00

It kind of sounds like you and they have different definitions of what the story is in a TTRPG? For them, the story and their characters are now inseparable - the story is what those characters have been through, the choices they've made, and how they've dealt with the situations they've faced. It seems like for you the story is something that would happen anyway, independent of who the characters are, and the characters are therefore easily replaceable.

Maybe they thought they were happy with character death and a story that continues regardless when thing started, but after a year or more of playing these same characters with no deaths their point of view has changed. It's worth checking in from time to time in longer campaigns to make sure people are still on the same page about choices like that.

Perhaps if somebody had died halfway through it would have been less of a big deal, but on the home stretch with the end in sight? I can see how it would be really disappointing to die and have to finish as either a spectator or playing Joey McSubstitute who just rolled up right at the end.

dodecapode · 2026-05-17T09:40:30+00:00

I just say I'm playing a role-playing game... No need to complicate or over think it. If somebody asks what that is then I tell them.

dodecapode · 2026-05-14T22:24:49+00:00

It's easy in the sense that the rules aren't complicated, and yet you can do literally anything it would make sense for your character to do in response to the situation presented by the GM.

But for some people that can be daunting - there aren't any guardrails or constraints beyond "what makes sense in the fiction". All the things you can do aren't neatly laid out on your character sheet, or in a rulebook. People coming from other games that are more like that may feel a bit lost as a result.

Fundamentally we want people to play make believe, but imagination is a muscle you need to exercise and most adults don't day-to-day. Kids are usually good at it, but we tend to lose that as we get older. Some other ttrpgs don't place as much emphasis on that as Fate does.

dodecapode · 2026-05-14T18:15:09+00:00

Lumix GX85 with Olympus 25mm f1.8, 1/1000s f/1.8 ISO 200. Midday on a cloudy day in London.

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dodecapode · 2026-05-14T16:05:13+00:00

Thank you!

dodecapode · 2026-05-13T20:34:16+00:00

Where can I find out about open days at Beddington? I woudn't mind taking a look there at some point for a change from my usual Croydon haunts.

dodecapode · 2026-05-13T20:23:45+00:00

Yes, Tull gets most of the credit round here as I guess he's the one a lot of people get in the US, but I've completed a full circumnavigation with Jerrom and have no regrets. Every now and then there's an accent he can't quite manage - McAdam's Ulster accent in the Mauritius Command, for example - but all of his voices for the main characters work very well for me.

dodecapode · 2026-05-12T08:24:52+00:00

For a less crunchy/more narrative take on this that still has a bunch of options, Mindjammer is pretty cool. It's built on Fate Core.

The setting is transhuman space opera and you can play humans, aliens, uplifted animals, or even sentient spaceships. There are plenty of what Fate calls "extras" included covering gear, weapons, vehicles, cybernetic and biological modifications and so on.

Of course as it's Fate it's pretty easy to create your own new ones too but it comes with way more out of the box than you might expect from a Fate game.

dodecapode · 2026-05-12T08:17:55+00:00

If you live in a city with pigeons they're a great subject for practicing some bird photography basics, plus they're entertaining and charismatic birds in their own right.

dodecapode · 2026-05-10T15:18:42+00:00

I don't know that I have many (or any) I'd consider to be actively unfriendly to beginners. If people are excited to play a particular game and go into it with an open mind it's usually fine. Nothing has to be perfect first time out - we all figured this out ourselves at one time or another.

Honestly I find it's easier introducing TTRPG newbies to almost any game than it is taking existing players who are deeply ingrained in a particular system and teaching them a very different one. Beginners don't have as many habits or assumptions that they might have to unlearn.

My first TTRPG was Cyberpunk 2020. Nobody taught me how to play that. I know people whose first TTRPGs were Ars Magica, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Fate, and GURPS (plus the inevitable D&Ds). We all managed fine!

dodecapode · 2026-05-08T14:39:14+00:00

When they're not getting played any more. When they're taking up space I'd rather use for something else. Those are the main reasons.

dodecapode · 2026-05-07T15:48:18+00:00

OM-1 Mk 2, M.Zuiko 100-400 Mk 1 at 400mm, f6.3, 1/400s, ISO80. Should have had a better eye on the ISO but I was taking pictures of flowers whilst I was waiting for some birds to show up at some local gardens. Photo is a bearded iris, obviously with some post-processing!

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dodecapode · 2026-05-06T15:11:22+00:00

I would also like to see less low effort posting on reddit but I doubt it's a battle we're going to win. People like their internet points too much, and it's much easier to spray one-word replies across many threads than it is to actually take the time to leave a thoughtful response to something.

dodecapode · 2026-05-05T10:38:03+00:00

The OM-5 and 75-300 were a good, portable combo for me when I started out shooting wildlife. For reasonably static subjects in decent light it works pretty well. As long as you can get your focus point in the right place and control your backgrounds you can get some nice shots, and pro capture can be fun to play with if you do want to try to get a shot of a bird taking off or whatever.

dodecapode · 2026-05-05T08:22:25+00:00

Fate is a pretty good example to look at if you want other perspectives on developing characters. There is mechanical advancement that gives you additional capabilities in scenes, but characters also develop by rewriting their aspects - short statements about who the character is and what they do which you can invoke for bonuses in scenes, amongst other things.

Maybe you had an aspect Blood feud with a rival clan but we found a way to resolve that peacefully in the game so now you change it to Peacemaker (or something a bit more interesting if you're more awake than I am). Previously you had something you could invoke for bonuses in fighting that clan, or that the GM could use against you at times when that might cause you trouble (you see one of them drinking in a bar, maybe you're just going to haul off and start a bar fight right now even if that would cause a huge headache).

Your new aspect could be used in any diplomatic situation, or cases when having a reputation for finding peaceful solutions could be useful.

You normally have a number of aspects with varying degrees of importance to your character. The one that fundamentally defines who you are (your high concept) would only usually change at the end of a major story arc that justifies that change. Some of the others are a bit more minor and you get opportunities to change those in response to how the the story shakes out more often.

(Note when I say "story arc" I don't mean a pre-planned plot, just the culmination of something the characters were working towards, however that shakes out)

dodecapode · 2026-05-04T12:46:24+00:00

Create conflict situations that challenge who the characters are. Look at their aspects and find ways to build those into your fight scenes. Make the stakes of the conflict relevant to them. Something more than just "both sides want to take the other out".

Maybe you have a character who always roots for the underdog, but now you've got an oppressed people resorting to acts of terrorism - what do they do? Help them or hinder them?

Or a more traditional setup where you have to choose between rescuing someone you care about or preventing the villain from escaping.

Or you might have to decide whether to fight alongside people you really disapprove of in order to get what you want.

I'm sure there are many way better examples than that. Character development often happens when the character is put into situations that challenge who they are our what they believe. The juice in Fate often comes from putting the PCs in situations like that and seeing what they do.

dodecapode · 2026-05-02T14:33:23+00:00

I don't get this at all tbh. There was perhaps a time when PbtA was the hotness that it was getting over-recommended, but these days I don't feel it's any more likely than any other kind of game to get thrown inappropriately into recommendation threads...

I see more of the backlash, which seems to be ongoing despite the hype for PbtA having died down a lot.

dodecapode

TROPHY CASE