Birch Tree Hilites - 14 Feb 2020
Happy Valentines Day! I drove home from work on a cold, sunny afternoon and was dragging for a Friday end of week. Spirits jumped, however, when I spotted a Sharp-shinned Hawk sitting in the birch trees at the entrance to the Del Webb in Brownstown, MI. I pulled over and grabbed a few backlit images from inside the car, then hopped out and walked around to the other side of the tree where bird cooperated long enough for a few frames before bolting to parts unknown.
I then arrived home, and found an American Tree Sparrow foraging under the birch tree in the yard. I decided to take a quick video clip from inside the house with the digiscoping equipment. The sparrow stayed only a few seconds longer, so I turned the scope/camera on a Dark-eyed Junco perched a few feet away.
I needed to brighten the video a bit in Photoshop, and when I couldn't figure out how to do it in the latest upgrade I turned to an internet search. Thanks to Aaron Nace at phlearn.com I spent the afternoon learning how to adjust transitions and effects within a video, as well as adjust color / brightness. It was a nice tutorial. I did learn a few things from the tutorials:
1. When adding keynotes to a video clip you have to select the clip, shrink the video group on the left, then re-expand it to add the keynotes (otherwise it keeps adding then to the previous clip
2. When adjusting the speed of the clips (I had shot at 120fps and wanted to slow footage to 25%) note that any previous keynotes are wiped out, so adjust speed before adding any transitions within a clip.
3. Adding audio to the clip will wipe out any slow-motion footage in Photoshop. Adding the audio but muting it will allow the slow-motion to work.
A Red-bellied Woodpecker made a brief appearance, as well, so I got a few digiscoped images before it flew off.
Feb 14, 2020 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Protocol: Stationary
Checklist Comments: Yard
3 species (+1 other taxa)
Sharp-shinned/Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter striatus/cooperii) 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) 1
American Tree Sparrow (Spizelloides arborea) 1
Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) 1
View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)
