wingspanner

Joined: Mar 3, 2019 Last Active: Oct 3, 2024 iNaturalist Australia

I like nature walking, and have been photographing natural things as I go, for 50+ years. I particularly go for birds, but other interesting stuff along the way gets snapped too.

**I've just found a temporary nectar hole with lots of bee species. It's giving me practice at photographing the uncooperative (always keep a blade of grass or a stamen between it and the camera) critters. The range of bees has staggered me. My favourite so far is Amegilla bombiformis (the Teddy Bear Bee - it was the name that occurred to me in the field when I saw it first). I'm still looking for a good ID key, so I'm a rank amateur at the naming... Which means I'm still at the stage of uploading too many or too few photos for IDing. I hope to improve...

My recent trips confirm the old adage - If you want to see different creatures, look in other places and i other ways.

A wingspanner is either one who assesses birds by their wing span, or the tool used to deal with wingnuts or both.

I like to track when and how often species are seen at what locations.
I am interested in intraspecies variability, by age, sex of whatever (eg blue damselflies currently).
I have been captivated by dragonflies and damselflies - all are fun, and I'm finding some of them challenging to identify (but the odonata mob are helpful and tolerant so it's worth the effort). And they have plenty of intraspecies variability, by age and sex, so that suits me. They do slow down my average walking pace though.

Technical stuff: For those interested, I'm using a Sony RX10 IV. Good for a wide range of photo types. I shoot in raw format. The camera never uses Noise Reduction for exposures less than 330ms. Longer than that, an averaging over twice the set exposure occurs (unless I switch it off).

On Species and Subspecies:
More subspecies of Oz birds have achieved full Species status recently, typically using measurements not accurately available in photos. I know that the more measurements you take, on the more individuals, and the more statistically powerful the analytic technique you apply, the more 'significant' differences you'll fund. I see that happening here.

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