Shoot 2026-06-02-135659 — philthompson.me

Birds
Mandel

Shoot 2026-06-02-135659

I managed to get some good photo opportunites for some local birds, and went on a successful trip after a lifer Lapland Longspur.

After a decently long walk over sand, I came to the spot where the Longspur was supposed to be. I encountered another birder on the way who was unable to find it, so my hopes weren't very high. Luckily, I spotted him out in the open, foraging on the beach. This bird was a full breeding plumage male. These birds breed way up in the North American tundra, so he's about 1,500 to 2,000 miles south of where the rest of his species is right now.

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

Signature

📄 hashes-2026-06-02-135659.txt

📄 hashes-2026-06-02-135659.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: b5351133f8a17ec8099c2c73beb92244725c0d69e359f161f5333134d32615c0

view the ALGO tx on explorer.perawallet.app: PDFDNUCF4PVCC4WELFRGJGPPH547WFFAOVLGMCCK4AQ5GG2CT3TQ

2:04PM Monday May 25, 2026

Turkey Vulture

2:04PM Monday May 25, 2026

Turkey Vulture

2:34PM Monday May 25, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

8:47AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

8:48AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

8:48AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

8:48AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

8:48AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

9:14AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

Turkey Vulture

9:41AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

American Kestrel, Band-tailed Pigeon

I guess these two species don't mind hanging out with each other!

9:41AM Tuesday May 26, 2026

American Kestrel, Band-tailed Pigeon

10:02AM Friday May 29, 2026

Purple Martin

10:02AM Friday May 29, 2026

Purple Martin

10:02AM Friday May 29, 2026

Purple Martin

10:02AM Friday May 29, 2026

Purple Martin

10:45AM Friday May 29, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

I don't often get the chance to see a female!

10:45AM Friday May 29, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

10:52AM Friday May 29, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

10:52AM Friday May 29, 2026

Lazuli Bunting

I've been trying to get a decent shot of this bird all season, but they're often distant or too high up in a tree. I was standing on a slope, with the tops of some vegetation at eye level, so this one worked out. This guy was singing on a nice perch at eye level but obscured by a tree between us. I slowly took a step to get better framing for this shot, and was luckily able to snap a few sharp frames before he flew off.

10:09AM Monday June 01, 2026

Lapland Longspur

10:13AM Monday June 01, 2026

Lapland Longspur

10:24AM Monday June 01, 2026

Lapland Longspur

The sand was quite warm, so the heat shimmer made most photos unusably soft. I stuck around for a little while and was lucky to have him approach me while foraging. The heat shimmer wasn't as much of a problem when he was closer to the camera.