T. S. Eliot really had it wrong–July is the cruelest month, at least for birders, and this year it feels as if summer has come all at once, July early, and the birds mute. A quiet midsummer is not at all odd, but this year, coming on the heels of an upside-down spring (the pandemic rules enforcing social distancing, closing refuges and other hotspots, disrupting travel near and far) the summer seems early. Every tick mark of every checklist is a struggle. Except for that one insistent Warbling Vireo.
In other (not terribly exciting) updates:
- Its time to bump up the dopamine agonist settings. We’ll see how that affects birding (when and if there are any birds to see);
- Still putting the new camera (Panasonic ds-z70) through its paces–backlit birds are very challenging for the autofocus; need to experiment with manual focus settings? (Just what my hands need, something else requiring manual adjustment);
- Do large mosquitoes count as “birds”?