My Birding World

Several months ago, I embarked on a journey to rename 10 years-worth of bird photos. For each image, which includes both the JPG and RAW files, I added the four-letter bird species code. This would allow me to easily locate species I am targeting for a blog post, ID comparison, or to share on Facebook. It’s been a daunting task, but also a good learning experience.

I was worried that I would uncover cases of misidentification, especially in my earlier birding years. I haven’t tackled the Texas birds, with which I am frightfully unfamiliar. A case of misidentification will throw off my carefully maintained written and electronic life list. So far, so good (noting that I haven’t looked at Texas yet…).

I renamed and sorted through countless bird photos for months. In the end, I was left with 140 shots of birds I couldn’t immediately identify. Now the real sleuthing begins. It’s fun to crack open a field guide or two, research media online, and try to puzzle out the features which will all contribute to my continuing knowledge of birds. What fun!