Chuqui 3.0

Andrew Burt for president of SFWA... (last one out please turn out the lights)

Before Even More People Send it to Me:

an indication of how electing Burt will not do wonders for SFWA’s relations with the public, or its potential future membership. And here we pause for a sigh and a sad headshake.

I have to admit that if I were still a member of SFWA (which I'm not), I'd be tempted to vote for Burt. Not because Burt is the best candidate (he's not), or even a good candidate, or even an acceptable one.

I'd consider it because it's very likely to cause SFWA to fall apart and die, and I long ago came to the conclusion that while the field needs a good writer's group to support SF/F writers, SFWA ain't it, and you can't fix it. So voting for Burt might be the way to cause SFWA to go away, allowing the people within the field with a clue to have a chance to start fresh and maybe build something decent. Unfortunately, it looks like as long as SFWA exists, there's not enough motivation to create that new organization and get enough people behind it to make it work.

Surf Scoter with Lunch

Surf Scoter with Lunch
Originally uploaded by chuqui

Surf Scoter attempting to eat a clam; it ended up dropping it because it was too big to swallow. Shoreline Lake, Mountain View, CA

Common Merganser

Common Merganser
Originally uploaded by chuqui

Surf Scoters landing

Surf Scoters landing
Originally uploaded by chuqui

Two surf scoters coming in for a landing.....

Cedar Waxwings

Cedar Waxwings
Originally uploaded by chuqui

I am definitely starting to like using ACR and CS3

A good day Birding -- Merced NWR, O'Neil forebay

Update: photos now available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/sets/72157603931162647/

Laurie and I joined Bob Power of Santa Clara Valley Audubon on a group outing to Merced NWR, O'Neill Forebay and the areas around that, with a group of about 12. It was a warm, sunny day, and the target birds were, of course, the geese and cranes that are about to head north for the spring migration. They didn't disappoint.

By my count, the day's list was 85. Highlight bird was tufted duck, found by Bob on O'Neill in a group of mixed scaups. Also highlight birds (at least for me) were Ross's goose and snow goose, sandhill crane, a gorgeous adult bald eagle, downy woodpecker, blue-gray gnatcatcher, brown creeper, hermit thrush, rock wren (which has been seen in Merced NWR since November on and off, and came out and gave a great show) and virginia rail, which Bob coaxed out of the reeds into full view to the amazement of the entire group.

there were a few notable misses by the group: no turkey vultures at Merced, we didn't see any until we hit Santa Nella. Also no California Towhee (go figure), no Say's Phoebe, no Burrowing Owl. the great-tailed grackle was seen just outside of Los Banos on the way to the group, so it wasn't seen by everyone.

After we left the group and were driving home, we realized we were headed past the Hawk/owl hotspot near Bailey road, so we headed out to Richmond and Santa Teresa, where we found ourselves in a gaggle of birders waiting for the owl. To my amusement, one of the birds Bob was trying to find at O'neill -- Say's Phoebe -- immediately popped up and posed. A Great Egret entertained the troops, catching and eating a vole to applause while harriers and kites hunted. At about 600, a Short-eared owl arrived to hunt, and was seen for about 15 minutes.

I added 11 birds to my life list today: Great-tailed grackle, Ross's goose, Virginia rail, Brown Creeper, Rock Wren, Blue-gray gantcatcher, tufted duck, clark's grebe, california gull, horned lark, and short-eared owl. Not all of these are really new to me (Clarke's grebe and california gull, SEOW and horned lark) but weren't in the documented trips I used to create the official list (horned lark in Victoria BC a while back, SEOW at Byxbee park in Palo Alto last year, for instance). Still 7 birds were new, and I can't complain.

That takes my life list to 180, and my year list to 120.

Tufted duck was a real find and a source of much frustration to the group. The differentiation between it and the scaups is fairly subtle, especially for this bird, which was either female or late juvenile male and mostly tucked and sleeping. In my case, I searched in the scope for a while and finally was able to see it among the scaups, got about 30 seconds of a good, obvious look, then lost it and couldn't re-find it again. Most of the others had similar challenges, but enough of us saw it and were able to differentiate it from scaups to be sure (and of course, we trust Bob, except when we don't...)

I was also thrilled that the brown creeper was my find while trying to get good looks at a bathing hermit thrush (at the back observation post at Merced).

At one point the geese took off, and we had about 12,000 snow and ross's all in the air and circling. we also had smaller overflights of sandhill crane, but there were easily 20,000 geese in the preserve -- and making enough noise to drown out the the blackbirds and marsh wren. Well, almost.

Also seen today -- tule elk at the basalt area of the San Luis Reservoir as we drove in, and deer in the hills above 152 driving home. I also had a possible barrow's goldeneye, but it was diving and I lost it before we could get someone else's eyes on it for verification. ohwell.

Species Name
Greater White-fronted Goose
Snow Goose
Ross's Goose
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Canvasback
Tufted Duck
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Common Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Ring-necked Pheasant
Pied-billed Grebe
Clark's Grebe
American White Pelican
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
White-faced Ibis
Turkey Vulture
White-tailed Kite
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Golden Eagle
American Kestrel
Virginia Rail
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
Killdeer
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Long-billed Curlew
Dunlin
Long-billed Dowitcher
Wilson's Snipe
California Gull
Western Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl
Short-eared Owl
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Black Phoebe
Say's Phoebe
Loggerhead Shrike
Western Scrub-Jay
Yellow-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
Horned Lark
Tree Swallow
Brown Creeper
Rock Wren
Marsh Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
American Pipit
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Brewer's Blackbird
Great-tailed Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch

Happy Valentines day!

Happy Valentines day!
Originally uploaded by chuqui

A happy valentines day to one and all. and may you and yours fly through life with a smile on your face....

Aperture 2.0: it's here.

Now, is it too late? Grumpity grump. But yeah, it was waiting for 10.5.2, just as somebody suggested...

Hmm. At first glance:. No sign of any plug-in architecture, no sign of better ACR or photoshop integration, no sign of keyword improvements. Aperture 2? sigh. Looks like they've made some nice improvments. Looks like they haven't improved some key areas for me. Do you really want to depend on JUST Apple to be able to build the tools to process your photos? Third party plug-in market for photoshop exists for a reason, there's more expertise needed than any one organization can handle.

American Robin -- another CS3 workflow test

found my meta-data. Don't use "Save for Web" (duh), use "Save as". This is now a photoshop album. Need to make sure I have descriptions in the meta data and a real title, and experiment with sharpening for flickr.

Almost there. Next up -- output for print to various sizes. And then setting up SmugMug for the portfolio (and using Flickr for the social side of the photography...)

Still working out niggling details on naming and etc... And next few nights I won't be around much in the evening... So by the weekend, maybe this'll be done.

Western Bluebird: another CS3 workflow test.

Another try on my CS3 workflow. I think I like this way of handling the copyright and framing better. And the photo istelf ain't bad. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing my keywords, so I"m doing something wrong with the metadata.. Of to explore...