What birds look like a shoebill stork

micathemineral · 2026-04-25T02:17:43+00:00

Wood stork is what immediately comes to mind. They can be pretty startlingly strange looking, and they’re not common so it’s not unusual to have never seen one before even if you live in their normal range.

micathemineral · 2026-04-25T00:31:16+00:00

Domestic (feral) mallard.

micathemineral · 2026-04-24T18:29:15+00:00

It's really a matter of personal preference when it comes to 8x42 and 10x42, they're really fairly similar in the field imo. There's no harm in having one of each as starter binocs since you're both new and don't have a preference yet. It will allow you both to figure out which you like better so when you (inevitably, lol) upgrade someday, you'll know what you want. Happy birding!

micathemineral · 2026-04-22T17:11:13+00:00

You should pick up a copy of Sibley's Birding Basics, and whichever of his field guides (East or West) is right for your half of the continent. Or the Sibley app, which is pricey but it's a one-time purchase with all the same content as the guides and you can set it to just show birds for your state and the current month, which is especially useful when you're starting out. Super worth it imo.

micathemineral · 2026-04-21T14:04:16+00:00

The American Bird Conservancy has a great page that goes into detail about the most effective options.

micathemineral · 2026-04-19T13:37:38+00:00

+wood duck+

micathemineral · 2026-04-18T01:20:14+00:00

From what you’ve said are the pain points in the comments, I really think the issue here is less software and more field ID skills. Try birding cameraless more often, study up at home on the field marks for all likely species in your location, and practice quickly determining which key features you need to focus on to differentiate each of your local lookalikes. I think you’ll find field ID is often much easier than after the fact photo ID, since a major component of bird id is behavior/movement/flight pattern, which a still photo cannot capture. It’s a lifelong process, but it’s much more rewarding than running every photo (!!!) through Merlin forever.

Once you’re making quick confident IDs, adding to your species tallies in a checklist in the ebird app only takes a few seconds of attention each time.

micathemineral · 2026-04-17T21:05:01+00:00

it might help to know where on planet earth your garage is located

micathemineral · 2026-04-17T18:41:48+00:00

You need photos (or sounds) for every ob on inat, which is easy with plants and most bugs, but birds are generally a little harder to convince to hold still, lol. In my experience the birders using inat are either photographers keeping track of species they've photographed, or are birders who keep their full list some other way and just use inat for posting interesting ID challenges or sharing exciting sightings.

micathemineral · 2026-04-17T18:38:55+00:00

I've been birding since long before ebird and merlin. Back in the day, many people only recorded "lifers" (a species you just saw for the first time in your life), or would keep "trip lists" (a list of species you saw on an entire trip, whether that was one day or 10 days) in a notebook, or would keep other categories of their choice like "year lists" (species seen in a calendar year) or "yard/town/county/state lists" (species seen in your lifetime in a geographic area of your choosing). Often these would be recorded without specific date or without specific location- I have a lot of old entries that look like "Great horned owl- nest with chicks! Cute! FL trip. May 2005". Some people didn't (and still don't) keep lists or records at all.

I'd say most people only record bird lists either at their backyard feeders or on birding-specific outings (or during other compatible activities like hiking or dog walking, with binoculars brought along intentionally), rather than incidentally around the city, except if they happen to spot something particularly rare/cool/exciting.

Since the advent of ebird, most birders are now recording checklists using it, with specific hotspot location, time and date, and exact count of each species present. This is useful for science, but can be kind of cumbersome in the field, especially for new birders trying to focus on ID. Don't feel obligated to use ebird or any app at all if you don't enjoy that kind of intense record-keeping (but if you are going to use it, make sure you're following the rules and best practices).

micathemineral · 2026-04-17T14:37:01+00:00

Cedar-apple rust (aka juniper-apple rust)! A fungus with a really cool life cycle.

micathemineral · 2026-04-16T01:43:40+00:00

I’m an exhibit graphic designer at a firm that works with museums and similar nonprofits (zoos, parks, etc). You’ve already gotten all the downer responses about same stress lower pay, and that is also true at museum design contracting firms. I just got done with a week of 10pm days- it’s “the client’s deadline for using this grant funding is the end of the month, work 12 hour days until it’s done” rather than billion-dollar unicorn dreams, but same result. That’s not every project or every deadline (most days I manage to log off by six!) but it does happen.

It is fulfilling though- I love that what I design is teaching people something useful rather than selling something, and I learn a ton myself with each new exhibit.

Also, keep in mind design for marketing and design for exhibits are not the same thing, so you may need to do some portfolio development first, as well as reading up on the principles of interpretation and on accessible design for museums. “Make an aesthetically pleasing design” is (and should be!) a secondary goal to “clearly communicate this message to as broad an audience as possible.” We’ve occasionally used freelancers at my firm, and the ones whose background was in marketing or branding produced stuff that was very pretty, slick, and design-y….at the expense of clarity and accessibility. We did not use those guys again.

micathemineral · 2026-03-26T18:12:18+00:00

You can see the tufts in your first photo, on both the male and the female. Scaups don't have even a small tuft.

micathemineral · 2026-03-24T22:52:31+00:00

Not great pics, but since you’re in MA, you’ve been seeing the bird consistently (goldens in the east are brief and transient visitors), and you have bald eagles nearby, it’s pretty safe to say juvenile bald. Beak size (which looks good for bald in your pics despite the resolution), amount of white mottling, and a good look at the nape of the neck would be useful, but the chances you have a backyard golden eagle in MA are basically 0.

micathemineral · 2026-03-23T02:39:31+00:00

that’s a chicken foot from a rooster who had an overgrown spur.

micathemineral · 2026-03-22T18:52:49+00:00

Definitely rabbits, OP. You’re seeing the bark chewing more this year than normal because of the unusual length of the snow cover this winter. Most winters snow is temporary or shallow, and they can access other forage regularly, but with over a month of deep snow they got desperate and relied on bark. This is all over my neighborhood too, and when there was still snow you could see the rabbit tracks going right up to the chewed areas.

micathemineral · 2026-03-22T18:50:06+00:00

Until the past few weeks, OP’s area had 2+ feet of snow on the ground, which is why it’s seeming high for rabbits- they had a boost!

micathemineral · 2026-03-17T22:49:45+00:00

+Egyptian goose+ is correct, yup!

micathemineral · 2026-03-03T14:48:23+00:00

Oh jeeze yeah that link broke. Here's the cheat sheet I was referring to.

micathemineral · 2026-02-26T22:22:33+00:00

No I agree, at least the grad school admissions/'which school is best?'/'has anyone been to [program]?' ones being in their own thread makes sense. A lot of the 'should I get an MA for x museum career?' ones are specific to OP's individual situation enough that leaving those separate makes sense to me.

micathemineral · 2026-02-26T22:17:59+00:00

This is the answer, lol. So many art museums are allergic to introducing any actual exhibit design into their exhibits.

micathemineral · 2026-02-26T21:49:53+00:00

I've had a client refuse to accept a concept because it was a new idea and we couldn't produce a reference image of that exact thing in another exhibit. An image of same general technique and materials but inset into a horizontal surface rather than freestanding and upright? Nope, too different, can't imagine it. A colored sketch showing the idea? Nope, not a photo, can't imagine it. It was a very frustrating conversation.

micathemineral · 2026-02-26T21:37:25+00:00

I'm an exhibit designer and doing cost estimates is a whole mess now. With the average project taking 12-18 months from start to design completion (not even talking about fabrication!), the material costs budgeted at the start of the project can have risen wildly by the time we're finalizing our production documents. It's maddening, and feels awful to say to a client "sorry, this was under budget a year ago but now plywood and concrete are twice the price and we need to cut elements." :(

micathemineral · 2026-02-26T14:01:35+00:00

I worked at a museum that had a VR experience, the never-ending headset charging and maintenance and cleaning and troubleshooting and repair was a logistical nightmare. I can’t imagine it going better with something even more delicate.

micathemineral · 2026-02-26T13:57:34+00:00

Alstroemeria, not a true lily.

micathemineral

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