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Catching up…A mere 8,391 photos to process, upload, display

Photo processing - the long slog

One of two directories worth of “good” photos that I just need to finish processing, and put somewhere where they’ll see the light of day.

Uh…yeah. I’m running a bit behind in terms of processing photos.  Starting in around, oh…2012…I got lazy. Instead of processing photos from a trip rather quickly to ensure I actually DID it, I let them languish. I’d occasionally go back and revisit old shoots, but the photos kept piling up.  Now I didn’t just completely ignore photos from a trip. For all of these photo shoots since early 2014, I DID go in and thin out all the bad photos. I converted the remaining photos from RAW and did some basic image processing. All these photos are thus “good” shots that I’ve just never done anything with. I haven’t cataloged them.  I haven’t put them on my own website. I haven’t put them on any of the photo sites where I have accounts. No Facebook, no Twitter…these are photos that are almost ready to go, but have never seen the light of day.

I’m now finding that on days I don’t go birding, I can pretty much do some virtual birding in my upstairs office, perusing all these unprocessed photos and getting them out on my website and elsewhere.  I’m finding SO many photos that I didn’t know I had! Species I didn’t remember shooting!  Wonderful scenes and settings that have since slipped my mind! So, I’ve decided to take a break. Take a break from going out quite as often as I’m used, and instead, catching up on the photos that I DO have.

Two directories worth of photos…one with 4,491 photos, one with 3,900 photos, all in need of polishing and uploading to somewhere that people can actually see them!  I’m going through it rather randomly, going back to some trip from 2012, back to 2018, etc. Not only am I “discovering” some nice photos, I’m finding photos that may be some of my favorite photos of all time!

No idea how long this will take, but it’s a nice way to spend days I don’t go out birding. Here’s a more recent photo, from Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado earlier this summer.

Woodhouse's Scrub Jay - Aphelocoma woodhouseii

 

Website changes / additions

California Scrub-Jay - Aphelocoma californica

An easy ID for many birders…a Western Scrub-Jay! WRONG! There is no longer a species called a Western Scrub-Jay. Instead, there are 2 individual species called “California Scrub-Jay” and “Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay”. This is a California Scrub-Jay, taken at Point Reyes National Seashore in California.

Remember 2 or 3 days ago how I said I couldn’t keep up with all the changes to the “official” American Ornithological Union (AOU) and American Birding Association (ABA) changes on their North American checklists?  That my North American Birds – Information and Photos page had nearly all the recognized species, but there were many changes in scientific names, species names, and taxonomic order that hadn’t been updated for a while?  I spent the last two evenings taking care of it all, and am glad to say that my that my  main species page is now completely up-to-date.  The taxonomic order now matches the AOU, all species and scientific names are correct, and I necessarily added a few pages for “new” species.

In terms of “new” species since I last updated the page, the newest was a AOU split of what was formerly the Western Scrub-Jay into two distinct species. I now have a California Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica) species page and a corresponding species range map page, as well as a new Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma woodhouseii) species page and a corresponding species range map page.  I was fortunate enough to have my own personal photos of both species, with several photos of California Scrub-Jay from around the San Francisco area, and a few photos of Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay from around Tucson, Arizona.  One other “new” species split that I was behind on was the split of what was formerly the Sage Sparrow.  I now have a new Sagebrush Sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis) species page and range map page, as well as a new Bell’s Sparrow (Artemisiospiza belli) species page and range map page.  Unfortunately I don’t have my own photos of either, although I at least have seen the Sagebrush Sparrow side of the split.

Taxonomic order changed quite a bit from my old version, which took a while to fix.  I went through all ~980 species to check scientific names, and was surprised how many had changed since I last updated my species pages.  The Warblers in particular had many, many changes in scientific names (no more Dendroica! Many more Setophaga!).

All up-to-date now though!  Come next July, when the AOU releases their 2017 updates, I’ll try to keep up on my web pages!

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