Shoot 2025-05-04-075627 — philthompson.me

Birds
Mandel

Older Gallery All Galleries Newer Gallery

Shoot 2025-05-04-075627

April is now in the books with my first (terrible) shots of a MacGillivray's Warbler and a few first shots of the year for a few species. At the coast, the highlight was a curious Harbor Seal.

My "birds in review" collages can be found here.

Signature

📄 hashes-2025-05-04-075627.txt

📄 hashes-2025-05-04-075627.txt.sig

The above hashes-<date>.txt file contains SHA-256 hashes of all the photos from this shoot. The hashes-<date>.txt.sig is a signature of that hashes file, created with my PGP key. The signature file itself was written to both the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains, in the OP RETURN and Note fields respectively, using the transactions below. In short, this proves that these photos and the signature both existed at the time the transactions were written to the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains. This blog post has more details.

view the BCH tx on blockchair.com: 25bfd26d5029c32a68c7540c3478c67ed94be5b0b736e99f2b58be72703e7408

view the ALGO tx on explorer.perawallet.app: L7HMJ73BGMQJKIE5LILJEHVOS32JT42CYTBJSISVSLFMOR4LS57Q

8:44AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

8:59AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

MacGillivray's Warbler

I breifly got my first glimpse of a MacGillivray's Warbler through binoculars before it flitted out of sight. I took a few photos of the area and was surprised to find it (though barely visible) in the photos.

8:59AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

MacGillivray's Warbler

8:59AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

MacGillivray's Warbler

9:21AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

9:22AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

9:28AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

Black-throated Gray Warbler

9:45AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

Cassin's Vireo

9:45AM Wednesday April 23, 2025

Cassin's Vireo

8:54AM Friday April 25, 2025

Orange-crowned Warbler

9:25AM Friday April 25, 2025

Red-shouldered Hawk

I'd like the experiment with HDR photos, with more than 8 bits of color depth, but these are still not supported by eBird and iNaturalist. Modern iPhones and iPads do support displaying HDR images, and Lightroom now also supports HDR, so it seems like it's worth editing and exporting some images in HDR mode.

9:25AM Friday April 25, 2025

Red-shouldered Hawk

9:25AM Friday April 25, 2025

Red-shouldered Hawk

9:25AM Friday April 25, 2025

Red-shouldered Hawk

9:27AM Friday April 25, 2025

Red-shouldered Hawk

9:27AM Friday April 25, 2025

Red-shouldered Hawk

9:37AM Friday April 25, 2025

9:45AM Sunday April 27, 2025

Orange-crowned Warbler

9:53AM Sunday April 27, 2025

Great Blue Heron

9:53AM Sunday April 27, 2025

Great Blue Heron

4:13PM Sunday April 27, 2025

Evening Grosbeak, Double-crested Cormorant

4:13PM Sunday April 27, 2025

Evening Grosbeak, Double-crested Cormorant

4:14PM Sunday April 27, 2025

Evening Grosbeak, Double-crested Cormorant

4:15PM Sunday April 27, 2025

Evening Grosbeak, Double-crested Cormorant

A good shot of an Evening Grosbeak still eludes me, but on this occasion some visited our yard and a couple of them were actually visible in the trees overhead for a few seconds at a time.

9:58AM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Gull, Double-crested Cormorant

This is a distant shot, but it shows some nesting Double-crested Cormorants, and some perhaps-nesting Western Gulls.

9:58AM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Gull, Double-crested Cormorant

9:58AM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Gull, Double-crested Cormorant

9:58AM Monday April 28, 2025

Double-crested Cormorant

10:35AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harlequin Duck

I didn't see this pair of ducks until I scanned over the area with my spotting scope.

11:40AM Monday April 28, 2025

Osprey

11:42AM Monday April 28, 2025

Whimbrel

11:46AM Monday April 28, 2025

Osprey

11:46AM Monday April 28, 2025

Osprey

11:46AM Monday April 28, 2025

Osprey

11:49AM Monday April 28, 2025

Pelagic Cormorant

11:49AM Monday April 28, 2025

Pelagic Cormorant

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Red-necked Grebe

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harbor Seal

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harbor Seal, in HDR.

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harbor Seal

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harbor Seal

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harbor Seal

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harbor Seal

11:50AM Monday April 28, 2025

Harbor Seal

11:52AM Monday April 28, 2025

Red-necked Grebe

11:52AM Monday April 28, 2025

Red-necked Grebe

11:58AM Monday April 28, 2025

Pacific Loon

I don't think I'd seen Pacific Loons in their breeding plumage before. Lots of little groups of 20-30 of them were headed north, flying low over the water. I'm not sure if they migrate during the day, or at such a low altitude, but for what it's worth ChatGPT says they were likely migrating.

11:58AM Monday April 28, 2025

Pacific Loon

11:58AM Monday April 28, 2025

Pacific Loon

12:01PM Monday April 28, 2025

Common Loon

12:01PM Monday April 28, 2025

Common Loon

12:01PM Monday April 28, 2025

Common Loon

The bird was at the very edge of the frame, so I used Photoshop to move it to the middle for a better crop.

12:01PM Monday April 28, 2025

Common Loon

12:02PM Monday April 28, 2025

unknown

I believe this is a Western Gull, but I don't know my Gull ID well enough to rule out Western/Glaucous-winged hybrid.

12:02PM Monday April 28, 2025

unknown

12:06PM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Gull, Brown Pelican, Pacific Loon

12:08PM Monday April 28, 2025

Bald Eagle

Another HDR image.

12:08PM Monday April 28, 2025

Bald Eagle

12:13PM Monday April 28, 2025

Least Sandpiper

12:13PM Monday April 28, 2025

Least Sandpiper

These birds have white flanks and feet that aren't quite black, so they fit Least Sandpiper.

12:14PM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Sandpiper

12:14PM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Sandpiper

12:14PM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Sandpiper

12:14PM Monday April 28, 2025

Western Sandpiper

The right-most bird looks like a Least Sandpiper, but the rest are Western Sandpipers: they have slightly longer bills and brown triangle spots going farther down their flanks.