Bird Update - January 3

Wow - photographing birds is hard but I am definitely having fun.  Some of the difficulty is me trying to learn a completely new camera and lens system.  Hopefully that will pass.  The other hard part is light is never perfect and birds fly.  In fact, they NEVER stop moving.  They remind me of my dreams at night - high speed images just flying past my eyes without ever letting me focus on one thing.  But when you get a photo, the image is incredible (sometimes - okay, one out of 1000 times).  So here is an update from my brain as I haven't kept a bird list yet - something I should probably start in this challenge - daily bird lists.

First bird I photographed in my challenge was a Blue Jay that I baited onto my back porch.  After a lot of deliberation, this will not count as my Blue Jay photo because I cheated.  But if its butt wasn't covered in poop, I may have made a different decision.  Since bait isn't allowed, I guess that also excludes the Red-breasted Nuthatch that showed up at my feeder.

Blue Jay

Red-Breasted Nuthatch

I got out yesterday and sat next to a creek for an hour or so hoping that a kingfisher would give me a shot at a photo.  Didn't happen but I photographed some Canada Geese and a few ducks. Nothing to write home about but still got the photos.  This brings me to what exactly counts as a photo.  I have decided that anything does but I will upgrade the photos as I get better ones throughout the challenge year.  I don't have a website yet for this challenge or my photography but I will soon.  The site will keep track of the best photos that I get but I will try to post the shitty ones too (until I can upgrade them).  Here are some examples of photos I plan to upgrade.

Canada Goose

That leads me to today.  I got out in the morning and found a few raptors, a chickadee, a Northern Flicker, and the best photo so far in the challenge - a female Brewer's Blackbird.  The photo isn't perfect but the bird is a good find although now I am on the hunt for a male.  I spotted other birds today such as a Hooded Merganser and Great Blue Heron but didn't take their photos (hence the need for a daily bird list).

Great Horned Owl

Immature Bald Eagle

Red-tailed Hawk

Okay folks - that is the start of my challenge.  I hope you had as much fun as I did and we will see what tomorrow brings.

Brewer's Blackbird

Personal Challenges - January 1 2021

I don't make New Year Resolutions.  I may have at some point in my life but they just set myself up for disappointment, self loathing, and ultimately depression so I just don't make them anymore.  For years, I haven't viewed the new year with much optimism.  My best new year in recent memory was probably January 1, 2017 when I submitted my resignation to my consulting job.  I didn't even give two weeks notice - I just never went back to work (although I did email them and told them that). 

So today, I have made several personal challenges to myself.  I like finding things and so my challenges will be hard but not impossible and all involve finding things.  I guess they are non-traditional resolutions (although number 1 is probably pretty traditional).  Here they are:

Challenge Number 1 - I challenge myself to find ways for better health.  This challenge doesn't have any measurable goals or even accountability tied to it but I have been brainstorming and dreaming of ways to find better health for myself.  This includes both physical and mental health.  I like to run.  I want to lift weights again.  I love to eat good food.  I like to write.  This challenge will give me opportunities for all of that in a nutshell (nuts are an approved food for my new caveman ideology - see below).

I went through hell in 2020 - Divorce, covid, business stress, stress for my children, and a lot of self loathing.  So, how do I even combat that in 2021? I need to write more.  Try to write daily.  Write about my feelings.  Write about what makes my body tingle.  Write about what makes me smile.  Write about what makes me cry.  JUST WRITE.  Simple without any consequences for not writing.  I just want to write and see where it takes me.  Maybe even write a steamy love novel (just kidding, or am I?).  "Just write, Cameron" - that is my motto. 

The second part of the better health challenge is my physical health.  I got a huge jump on that in 2020 by breaking my relationship with sugar  and alcohol and I lost almost 30lbs.  I don't remember my heaviest weight in 2020 but it was near 225lbs.  I weighed myself this morning after a really bad week of eating poorly (holiday sugar) and was 195.2lbs.  I still have 20lbs that I want to lose and probably will lose that weight easily if I just stay away from sugar.  I don't know if I will ever drink alcohol again mostly because I use it to numb myself and hide from reality.  I don't want to live that way again even if my feelings are so much more intense without it.  I don't need it and it makes me feel like shit.  I recently learned that my body reacts really poorly to gluten - it makes my entire body ache and hurt (try not eating gluten for a month and then eat it again - you will find out how you react to it).  So that is also an easy health choice for me in 2021 - just avoid gluten.  The last part of this second part of Challenge 1 is to eat more foods that haven't been processed at all.  We all talk about it - just shop the outside of the store and avoid the aisles.  No processed foods.  Eat like a caveman.  If you can find it in the wild and eat it raw, it is okay to eat.  If it has to go through a processing plant and get created by humans, don't eat it.  My boys are board with more hunting and fishing to help me with this endeavor.  We are going fishing today (hopefully but it is cold and we have to find open water as we aren't ready to take on ice fishing) and rabbit hunting next weekend.  We want to see if we can harvest our own meat.  This phase really won't be in place until next September when the big game seasons open but we can fish and go after rabbits for the time being to supplement what we can buy from a butcher.

So there is my challenge Number 1 - Better Personal Health.

Challenge Number 2 - I want to improve my photography and videography.  I recently purchased new cameras and lenses.  Professional ones.  The ones from my Dream list.  So my challenge to myself is to take photos of 365 different species of birds in 2021.  This is an average of one a day and that sounds daunting but I have a trip planned to the Bahamas in May and this challenge will also force me out of my Colorado safety net.  It will mean a few weekend road trips to see more things and this will naturally improve my mood.  I also want to sell my photography and/or videography services so I will be starting a new business.  I don't have a name yet and I don't even know how to do it but I am putting it out there.  I think I want to focus on animals and could target people's pets as subjects but this will grow, evolve, and thrive as the year goes.  It will be fun to just get out and take photos/videos and I can always use them in my own business even if I never sell a single photo (like this photo of a tegu).  Plus taking photos/videos of 365 different species is an awesome challenge and so much fun.  I will have enough photos to make a calendar for 2022 or who knows what else.  It is getting out in nature, with my cameras, finding critters, and making myself happy.  So much better than sitting on the couch worrying about my future and the future of my children and if they will be happy.  So much better than anything else that I can think of right now.  I will probably add to this challenge as the year progresses with maybe mammals, reptiles, fish, and amphibians (the other vertebrate classes) but birds will get me started.

That is it - two challenges.  Both vague enough to go in any direction that feels good and both with enough structure to be a challenge.  Both will make me happier and help me with discovering myself.  I have been doing a lot of thinking about who I am and I don't know.  I have ALWAYS outsourced approval of who I am, what I do, and where I go.  These challenges will help me find self approval and to hell with everyone else's opinion unless I ask for it.  These challenges are non-negotiable for others to comment on - they are what I want to do.

Wasted Time - November 29

I forgot to write again yesterday but I was making videos so maybe that counts.  The only trouble is that the videos I make aren't about my journey and healing.  They are about snakes and other wildlife.  I wonder if they have the same effect though as I don't feel the need to write if I am recording and making videos.  Well - more recording videos.  The making part is fun too but that is also a bit of work (only because I am stuck inside on a computer).  The being in nature and secretly recording wildlife (if I am doing it right, it is a secret to them) doing what they do in nature naturally is the therapy part.  It makes me so happy.

But...  Isn't there always a but?  The but is that I have been conditioned and told over the years that spending time in the woods it a waste of time.  From as long as I can remember, people would tell me that looking for snakes was a waste of my time.  Lots of people too.  Friends, parents, teachers, professors, lovers - they all have made comments that looking for snakes so much makes me irresponsible.  That I should be doing something productive instead.  It wasn't that going out was discouraged.  No - I think I was told to go outside (maybe to get me away them).  It was the amount of time that I did it that was frowned upon.  I could spend hours and hours sitting in one spot waiting for a snake to reemerge from a hole.  Literally HOURS and I think this is what wasn't understood by anyone and can be viewed as a waste of time; that I should be doing something better with my time.

But...  And this but is in my favor.  This but is about what I learned and gained from sitting for hours waiting for a snake to emerge from a hole so that I can take its picture.  I learned about the snake.  I learned its habits.  I learned how it behaves without human interference.  I learned how it interacts with other snakes.  I got to witness things that no one else has witnessed (well - no one else except for the people like me).  And it isn't just snakes.  I once got video of a porcupine walking down a road at 2am in the middle of nowhere.  I got video of an opossum that was on the verge of playing dead (I didn't push it over the edge just for my video but I sure wanted to).  Just recently, I spent hours luring a squirrel into my house just to feed it a peanut.  The one thing that I haven't been very good at making videos of is birds.  Birds require a longer lens and a lot more patience.  Well, a different kind of patience.  They are constantly moving and flitting about making set up for videos difficult.  I prefer to set up my camera and leave it running.  Birds you have to follow around and get what you can when you can.  But I am going to try.  It will be a fun challenge.

Sitting and watching wildlife is my therapy.  It is better for me than anything else.  I need to end the feelings of guilt and shame that come with it though.  Those were projected and given to me from other people.  Those aren't my beliefs.  Those aren't my feelings.  Those aren't mine to own.  Being in nature with my camera makes me feel good.  That is what I need to focus on - the good feelings.  I need to focus on what makes me happy and NOT what other people think about me.  They can go fuck themselves and their opinions.  I am going to go outside and sit for HOURS in nature.

High Speed Dreaming - November 27

Wow - where did the week go?  I didn't write all week and I am trying to write every day.  I would say it is weird but I was able to get outside and make videos every day this week - maybe that is my writing this week.  I was able to get some fun duck videos and more muskrats underwater.

But this post is about my dreams and I think I finally figured out why I wake up so exhausted every morning.  I dream at high speed.  It is like I am previewing video and skimming through it using my computer mouse to control the speed.  This is faster than playing it in high speed and allows me to skip through 10 minutes of no action video to find the 2 seconds of a muskrat swimming by or a snake coming out of a hole.  My dreaming may be an unanticipated and unwanted artifact of the way I record hard to video wildlife.  

If I want to record a snake in a hole, or a mouse running next to the wall, or a muskrat carrying food into its burrow, I typically set up my camera, hit record, walk away, and come back in an hour.  This gives the animal time to get use to the camera and then behave naturally.  Without "eyes" staring at it, the animal will often just go about its business.  This makes for extremely long videos with nothing moving in it until that 2 second burst of activity.  So when I am reviewing the video to see what I got, I swing the mouse cursor over the video and play it back at really high speed that really doesn't have a speed - sometimes it is slower and sometimes it is faster.  And when I spot something moving in the video, I go back and forth to figure out what it is.  This is how I dream.  And it is exhausting.

This type of video is highly successful - I am able to capture things that we talk about but rarely, if ever see.  That is my mind.  So I am going to embrace dreaming in high speed from now on and not let it frustrate me.  It might still be exhausting but at least I know I am capturing something special.

Slow Motion Swimming - November 23

Well - I missed two days of writing.  I have been in a complete anxiety fog.  New covid restrictions just came out and I have no idea how that will affect the Lab.  All I can do is try to stay positive and keep moving forward.  We have to survive this virus.  That anxiety has completely buried me. 

But I have found a pond that has a lot of muskrats in it and that presented a new challenge to me.  I want to video muskrats underwater. This not an easy task because muskrats are extremely fast swimmers.  They have to be.  There are so many predators that would catch them if they were slow but they can easily out swim a mink, snapping turtle, or even a large bass.  But this makes for a very difficult video to capture.

Muskrat Leaving Its Burrow on Day 2

So I spent 3 afternoons last week trying to capture a muskrat underwater and each day I got a little better at it.  The first day, all I got were fish.  The second day, my camera was too close to the underwater entrance of the muskrat burrow but I did capture one going in and out.  The third day was better.  I set my GoPro up outside the burrow with a 16mm wide angle lens on it (it is a digital lens) and I captured the muskrat going in and out several times.  The trouble is that they swim way to fast for it to be an interesting video (less than one second in the frame) so I had to slow it down.  I got the video I wanted but all it makes me want to do is go back again and again to get different angles and perspectives.  Muskrats are fascinating!

So what does this all mean?  All my writing that I have been doing lately (I am not publishing it right now - it is painful but necessary as I heal) is exactly what I learned about muskrats.  It is all happening extremely fast - too fast for me.  Yes, it is a part of my healing but it is all way too fast.  Things at the Lab are happening too fast as well.  I CANNOT KEEP UP!  Everything is passing me like a muskrat underwater - way too fast to be of any use.  But I am capturing it all - now I just need to slow it down to make it useful.  I have slowed down the muskrat to just 10 percent of its normal speed.  I need to make lists of the anxiety in my world and slow it down.  This can be done and it will allow me to see the world at a pace that I can react to and catch that damn muskrat.

Rattlesnakes

I just got off the phone with a Ranger with the City of Boulder Openspace and Mountain Parks.  She had texted me that it was a very interesting snake weekend in Boulder County and that definitely peaked my interest.  I started off the conversation by asking her if she had heard about the two rattlesnake bites in Eldorado Springs Canyon over the weekend.  She laughed and told me that there had been 5 rattlesnake bites on City Openspaces over the weekend.  Her laughter wasn't at the bites but at my gross underestimation of human-rattlesnake encounters.  My information was from a local fire chief that had helped extract the canyon bite recipients.  It was clearly outdated and underestimated.

So why all these rattlesnake bites in one weekend?  That is why the Ranger reached out to me.  She wanted to brainstorm and talk it through.  I could only tell her one thing - cow pies.  Rattlesnakes emerged from hibernation in my area in the middle of April.  They have been fasting all winter and are hungry.  It is now the end of May (at least last weekend) and they have either gotten a meal already and are digesting someplace safe from humans or they haven't gotten a meal and they are starving.  So why would I say cow pies?  Well, hungry and hunting rattlesnakes coil themselves into a small circle, hide their tails (rattles) under a body coil so it doesn't make noise, and wait.  They wait for days until a prey item happens in front of them and then they strike fast and hard to deliver a deadly (to rodents not humans or dogs - at least not the prairie rattlesnake that lives in Boulder County) cocktail of digestive enzymes (venom) into their prey.  Although instead of a small rodent or lagomorph (rabbit), five hunting rattlesnakes mistaking bit humans this past weekend.  My guess is based upon that none of the bites were preceded by a rattle and all of the bites occurred on the feet or lower legs of humans.  I could be wrong and at this point, it doesn't really matter.  We will need more data to really draw conclusions about each one of these bites but that is not the purpose of this blog post.  The purpose is to talk about how to safely enjoy our openspaces and avoid encounters with rattlesnakes.

Cow Pie waiting in ambush for a small rodent.  It is my opinion that these are the rattlesnakes most likely to bite a human as mistaken identity.  I would love to have someone study what is needed to make this snake strike.  Is it just a warm object (rodent, human foot) or do they need chemical cues (smell) as well?

We will first talk about how to stay safe with just you and your family and then end with how to stay safe with your dog in rattlesnake country.  If you can remember the word SNAKE, you can stay safe in areas with rattlesnakes.  Here is the acronym blown apart for you to stay Snake Aware:

S - Stay on trail.  This is really difficult as more and more people explore our openspaces but it might just be the most important thing for staying safe.  Rattlesnakes are EXTREMELY cryptic.  They are nearly invisible when in the tall (and short) grasses or next to a rock in a boulder field.  Once you leave the trail, your chances of seeing a rattlesnake is greatly reduced.  This creates an opportunity for you to step on or near a cow pie (hunting rattlesnake) and these are the snakes most likely to mistakenly bite a human (they can't eat us so why would they want to bite us?).

N - Never engage, approach, or threaten a rattlesnake.  This might sound like common sense but you would be surprised at the number of males ages 18-30 that can't follow this advice.  They have to catch or worse, try to kill a rattlesnake.  This is a recipe for disaster.  No one has ever been bitten by a rattlesnake that they left alone.  REMEMBER THAT - no one has ever been bitten by a rattlesnake that they have left alone.  So, just leave it alone.  Don't try and get it off the trail.  Don't try and relocate it.  Don't try to kill it.  All of these things increase your risk of being bitten.  Just walk away.

A - Always give a snake room to escape.  This means back away and let the snake do its thing.  When approached, many rattlesnakes will begin to rattle and move backwards away from danger (YOU).  Snakes often freeze and remain frozen for some time, especially if confronted by a something larger than them.  This makes it harder to believe that the snake just wants to get away from you as it sits frozen in front of you.  But by backing away and giving the snake room to flee and escape, it will eventually move again and disappear someplace safe.

K - Know the snakes in your area.  It is surprising to me how little we pay attention to the animals and plants around us.  As a natural historian, I want to know what everything is so that when I find something different, I can get excited and learn more about it. Not all of us are like me, and I am finally beginning to understand that in my old age.  But, if you live in a place where there could be venomous snakes, I implore you to at least learn how to identify them.  Watch this video to learn how to identify a prairie rattlesnake - Prairie Rattlesnake Identification.

E - Everyone (including the humans) goes home safely.  That is, if you stay on trail, never engage a rattlesnake, always give it room to escape, and know the snakes in your area. 

The big take home message is to stay on trail and be snake aware.  Just knowing that you are in an area that potentially has rattlesnakes can increase your chance of seeing it before it sees you.  And if that happens, you can take cool photos and videos to share and have an incredible story to tell.

Now to talk about dogs and rattlesnakes.  Dogs use their incredible sense of smell to explore the world around them.  This is only a problem when they find a skunk or hiking with dogs in rattlesnake country.  Here is a list of 10 things I recommend when hiking with dogs - some might be a bit repetitive but hey, I want you and your dog to be safe.

1. Don't take your dog to places with rattlesnakes.
2. Stay on trail - this means your dog too.
3. Don't use those extendable, retractable leashes - they let your dog wander to where you can't see (like off trail).
4. Don't take your dog to places with rattlesnakes.
5. Stay on trail - this means your dog too.
6. Don't use those extendable, retractable leashes - they let your dog wander to where you can't see (like off trail).
7. Don't take your dog to places with rattlesnakes.
8. Stay on trail - this means your dog too.
9. Don't use those extendable, retractable leashes - they let your dog wander to where you can't see (like off trail).
10. Don't take your dog to places with rattlesnakes.

Hopefully you are both laughing and annoyed at my list but truthfully it is the only way to ensure that your dog doesn't encounter a rattlesnake.  If your dog is off leash and off trail in rattlesnake country, this is like playing with a revolver with one bullet.  You can keep spinning the revolver and pulling the trigger without ever shooting it but then bang, the gun unexpectedly fires.  If you do take your dog into rattlesnake country, stay on the trail and keep your dog on a short leash.  I know I am writing (at least trying to) with a little humor but this is a serious matter.  Dogs are amazing snake bite survivors (approximately 80 percent of dogs bitten by rattlesnakes survive) but why risk it?  There are plenty of places to take your dog for a walk or run that don't have rattlesnakes.  Go there instead.  There are lots of dog training operations that offer rattlesnake avoidance training for your dog but their methods are extremely cruel to both the dog and especially the snakes they use in training.  There is a method being used in Arizona that is amazing for both you, your dog, and snakes.  Maybe with my past as a dog trainer, I should be bringing this method to you here in Boulder County.  Hmmmm.  Add that to my list.

Camera Dreams (I need a sugar daddy )

Tonight kicks off the NFL season with the Chiefs playing the Texans.  I have zero stake or interest in who wins this game but I am watching it.  Well, it is on TV while I wait for my big boys to get home from playing 18 holes at a nearby golf course so I can make them dinner (I finished this post after dinner - we had buffalo chicken sandwiches).  

But what I am really doing it dreaming.  Sony recently released a brand new camera that has incredible low-light capabilities and records in 4K resolution - perfect for my new and ever changing role at the Center for Snake Conservation.  Coronavirus has all but closed My Nature Lab although we are slowly coming back.  I recently brought back one of my employees to run the Open Lab sessions and our Education Director filled all of her programs for the fall.  So that leaves me and what I am doing.  

I am creating a new Virtual Lab program where I create 3 separate and novel lessons each week (you can join for $20/month here:  www.mynaturelab.org/virtual-lab).  This means I am recording, processing, and creating lots and lots of video content for the Lab.  I have 3 video cameras at my disposal but that does NOT stop me from dreaming.  Here are my current cameras and what I use them for and then I will go into my dream camera - the Sony Alpha a7S III Mirrorless Digital Camera.

GoPro Hero 8 - This is a workhorse of a video camera.  Originally designed and purposed as an action camera, it is great for making videos when walking in the field.  Plus it is waterproof so I can use it underwater to record the life below the surface.  I use it almost daily.  It was a gift from my parents last fall and I love it.  Cons - It is only a wide angle camera and cannot record videos of something (think wildlife) more than 3 feet away very effectively.

Sony AX-100 - This is my dedicated 4K video camera that does the bulk of the videos I take.  I bought this camera over 4 years ago and it is starting to age but I still really enjoy using it.  I can set it up on a tripod and it takes INCREDIBLE videos.  Without a tripod, it is pretty much useless as the camera shake is really bad even with the image stabilization turned on. That isn't a problem though as I always have my tripod.  Cons - the view finder is terrible and the view screen does not work in full sun because of the terrible glare.

iPhone 11 Pro - This is relatively new camera in my arsenal and I really enjoy it.  I wish it had a bigger sensor but for videos made for viewing on phones and tablets, it really gets the job done.  All my macro videos and photos are taken with this camera as well as portrait and landscape shots.  It is quick to use and always with me. Cons - not really good for wildlife videos.

SOOOOOO - why do I want to get a new camera?  Because I do.  I want the versatility of being able to change lenses depending on the situation and subject.  I have decided that I want two lenses to start out with  - a longer zoom and a lens for closer work (eventually I will also need a dedicated macro).  Plus Sony just came out with a new memory card that is extremely fast so I will need that too.  

Here is what I want:

• Sony Alpha a7s III Mirrorless Digital Camera ($3,498.00)
• Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM Lens ($2,098.00)
• Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM Lens ($2,398.00)
• Sony VG-C4EM Vertical Grip ($398.00)
• Sony 160GB CFExpress Type A TOUGH Memory Card ($398.00)
• Sony NP-FZ100 Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery ($78.00)

Total Price Tag (there are some bundle discounts) is $9,533.10 after taxes.  

$9,533.10 - A man is allowed to dream, RIGHT?

Holy hell - that is a lot of money but it sure is fun to dream...

But here is an example of what I would be doing with this incredible camera and lenses - making educational videos about plants, animals, nature, biology, ecology, and SNAKES!  I firmly believe that you have to talk about something to make it happen so I will be talking about getting this camera every day until I get it (and I will) plus I will be talking about our new Virtual Lab because that is the future of My Nature Lab's growth.  Did I mention that you can get your own Virtual Lab membership for $20/month at www.mynaturelab.org/virtual-lab?