I publish Bird Sense to share my birding world with family, friends, and others, to discuss good birding practices and ethical birding, and to encourage veteran birders to begin thinking about birding in new ways.
Bird Sense discusses the Virginia birding community at length because the only community that I can write about is the one that I belong to. Virginia is riddled with great birding venues and birders of all skill levels.
The photographs/composites appearing here were obtained with Canon EOS 50D, and 1D Mark 111 DSLRs. Camera lenses include the Canon 5.6/400, and f4/500 mm telephoto lenses.
Click into most photos/composites to open them. The difference between the bird photos and composites published to Bird Sense is that all of the elements in my bird photos are native, while composites will have non-native elements introduced to them. Painting a new background into a photo is one example of adding a non-native element to a photograph.
Remember, when birding and/or photographing birds, an unwanted human disturbance can harm breeding birds and their young.
Birding is a lot of fun, but viewed in its proper context, birding is hardly a game, nor is it some perpetual, competitive sporting event. Birding's principal focus is conservation!
This is not well understood by the American Birding Association (ABA), the Virginia Society of Ornithology, other bird clubs, many veteran birders, and others. A long life list is hardly proof of some level of birding skill, nor is a life list some kind of birding or conservation credential.