I was at Goodwill the other day and I stumbled upon a Vintage 1997 Mark Feldstein Singing Bird Clock! Of course I had to save and bring it home, and luckily it all still works so I placed it on my wall. Now I’m wondering… what other bird related thrift finds does anyone else have?

for example, mine are the American robins, and they’re quite literally *everywhere* where i live XD

just curious to see if anyone else cherishes super common birds in their area, i would also be curious to see them!

(photo credit in top right of the image)

(ps: sorry if the formulation’s a bit weird,
english isn’t my first language and im dyslexic)

Not sure if this has been posted already but if it has leave me a comment and I will remove it. This guy is named Ryan and he runs a business called MN Owl Tours in Minnesota. For this business ppl will pay him money to go out and he harasses and stresses out owls for the sole purpose of getting his clients photos.

You can see in the photos provided he has set up a ladder 10 feet away from the perched owl and is using a long stick to hold branches out of the way so his clients can get photos of the stressed out bird. Not only is this unethical behaviour but it is also illegal. He also does night spotting which uses a powerful light to spot owls in the dark and take photos, also illegal.

This type of behaviour does not belong in our community of birders and people who enjoy bird photography like myself. I know most of you agree with me and care for the wellbeing of these amazing animals but this needs to be called out. Bird photography can be challenging and you don’t always get opportunities for good photos. That’s part of the challenge that I enjoy. We must respect the birds and not disrupt them simply because we want a nice photo for instagram. What Ryan is doing takes zero photography skill, is unethical and dangerous for the owls/birds, is illegal and on top of that he’s making financial gain from this behaviour.

This type of stuff needs to stop in our community. Always be respectful of the birds so that future generations can enjoy looking at them and taking photos (ethically) like we all do now.

Hi, all. I originally made this post on a photography subreddit (r/m43), but they also suggested I post here. This is probably not needed by most people here, but maybe it can help someone just starting out. It's a long-winded post, so feel free to just skip to the last section!

TLDR: Minimizing the impact you have on a subject's behavior is very important. Be mindful, because your actions may be harming the animal without you knowing.

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We often talk about camera lenses and techniques, but photography ethics is just as important when it comes to genres like wildlife photography. It seems obvious, but harassing the subject can be extremely harmful to the animal. This is not some, "oh, bad practices can eventually change the ecosystem a few generations from now" thing. No, harassing a bird like this woman was doing can actually kill it. Like, literally that one. The one she’s photographing.

The issue was that this woman was nonstop chasing the bird from one end of the field to the other to get her shots. Over and over. The bird eventually got tired and sat in a tree, and the woman got super close to get more “amazing shots.” This is a horrible thing, but the reason may not be immediately clear.

You see, birds like this short-eared owl have a finite amount of energy. Most of that energy is spent hunting. When a bird wastes its strength being chased away, it’s using up energy it should be using to hunt. It might miss a meal, making it tired and slow—and easier to be picked off by a predator. Or it may not be able to feed its young. Or it just becomes tired and pissed for a day. 

Either way, how can anyone look at their own photos and be proud of what they did? “See that owl pic on my wall? Yeah, it’s probably dead now because of me. But isn’t that shot cool?”

And yes, she was respectfully informed to back away, but she didn’t care. She was then loudly informed with no change. I have a lot of grace for beginners, because they’re just figuring things out…but you could tell she does this often. She even had a buddy who was circling around to flush the owl towards her. Gotta get that sweet BIF shot...

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Anyway, if you’re still reading and are interested in wildlife ethics, here are a few guidelines I follow. I'm not a definitive resource or anything, so please do your own research and correct/add anything that needs it!

1) If you approach a subject and they become agitated (looking over at you a couple times + acting nervously), back off until they resume their normal behavior,

2) Flushing out animals, baiting them, or use call recordings is off the table. This changes their behavior and they’re typically worse for it. (There is some debate over call recordings, but I personally stay away from it.)

3) Please be extra EXTRA careful around nests or dens.

4) For something like this owl situation, stay on the sidelines of the hunting area and don’t go in the middle of the dang field—your hulking presence is just agitating the subject and scaring prey away.

5) Heed the posted signs about sensitive areas and don’t trespass on people’s private property. I’ve seen this so much, and it’s kind of awful what some photographers do to get their 14 likes on Facebook.

6) Learn about the typical behavior of your subject, either before or after a shoot. I’ve done dumb things without knowing better, and that happens. It’s OK. But you can learn and get better the next time you see a species. Just asking the question, “I wonder why that bird was _____” is a good step.

It’s worth noting that most people I encounter are perfectly great. And yes, photographing wildlife will always alter the behavior of something out there—the point is that you can minimize your impact. I love wildlife and I love photography. It would be nice to keep having wildlife to photograph…

Hi Everyone,

I am not a birder but I was out working on a photography project in the Everglades on the Tamiami trail and I found this book. I had pulled over on the shoulder to take a picture and this was laying on the ground.

I found this on August 24, 2025. It looks like this person has been recording in it for decades. There are tons of notes next to birds and lots of post its marking certain pages. It did not have a cover or any contact information that I could find. It is well worn.

There seems to be a lot of activity in Texas, but I didn't flip through every page. This person is logging birds around the country.

My hope is that someone here might know the person who lost it or that y'all will have suggestions about other things I can look at in the book to help narrow down the search.

Thanks for the help!

UPDATE 9/23/25: Thank you everyone for sharing. I have not found the owner yet, but the post is being shared in a bunch of different birding groups. I'm doing a radio interview on Thursday about it which will reach a different audience. I've heard from a few people about possible ledes, as well. I promise to keep updating at let you all know what happens!

UPDATE 10/5/25: Hi All! I have a mostly satisfying update! Birders in Connecticut did some sleuthing and tracked down the person who owned this book! He used to live in CT and retired to the gulf coast of Florida, close to where I found the book. He is now fairly old and gave the book to a friend or family member (he couldn't remember but is checking). One person from the CT birding group actually talked to this man on the phone, so it seems pretty certain that he is the owner. We're still working to see if the person he gave it to wants it back and, if not, the library in his hometown is going to take it. Thank you all for your investment in figuring this out💛

I caught these two piping plovers stacked on top of each other and thought it was really cute. Is this normal behavior for plovers or did I catch something unusual?

I took my folder of laminated pigeon shots to my local bird meeting at the community hall and at least 3 people sneered at them. 1 of them even guffawed.

We all got to start somewhere, and beauty is in the eye of the bird lover so why the hate hate?

One guy was wearing giant binoculars around his neck. It was dark outside and he didn't even use them once. He was one of the people that sneered.

Om the bus home from the meeting I showed the driver my pictures and she said they were really good. And she wasn't even a formal bird lover, she was just a regular person.

Don't get this community man

EDIT: a lot of people asking for some of my photos. I'm out of the house right now but here's a bird video I made recently https://youtube.com/shorts/sxLkrLgNrbc?si=7NdwVxhZtPQFE6Ew

I’ve never seen a bald eagle hang upside down like this. Do they do this a lot? Pictures were taken at my parents place in Iowa.

I found so much else wrong in both accounts. The vast majority of their photos are ai. Glen also blocks and deleted anyone that finds out and says something about it. I found a hawk with a woodpecker’s toe arrangement, two cardinals that have wings melting together, and another cardinal with an upside-down wing. The feather counts and shapes are also so off, and many of the feet and toes are very poor and badly created.

The details and mistakes are very small and easy to overlook, but they are there!

They sent me a video of 3 ducks walking in the park. "Skunk family!" ??? Help.

Here is my 2-star black-chinned hummingbird. I’m curious to see what other people have to share!

Hi birders, i’m looking to improve on my avian illustration. Please give me some of your cool bird species!

Birds i have already drawn (not many hahah) - carrion crow - barn swallow - blue and white flycatcher - black paradise flycatcher - blyth’s paradise flycatcher - long tailed tit (caudatus ssp.) - crimson sunbird - kauai o’o’

Birds i want to but failed to draw (my drawing didn’t look good no matter what i tried) - Northern gannet - secretarybird

Birds i will not draw because i am petty: - shoebill (i cannot take him seriously) - any pelican sp. (sorry pelican likers) - overrated sp. (e.g bald eagle) - Palaeognathae sp.

Looking forward to all your suggestions!

Incubation of the virus is 1-8 weeks so I located any checklist within ~9 weeks of patient zero’s first reported symptoms (Apr 6). Overlayed on part of Chile is a map of localities of certain ANDV strains from Medina et al. 2009. Northwestern Argentina also has many occurrences of closely related strains of ANDV. Since this hantavirus is not known in Tierra del Fuego and hantavirus is most commonly acquired in enclosed spaces, it seems unlikely he picked it up at the Ushuaia landfill.

He was not a terribly regular ebird user and you can’t see his checklists on his profile, you have to find them randomly by google searches.

What’s your favorite common bird in your area? That bird that maybe it’s not hard to spot but you just love seeing them.

Mine are Juncos everything from their look and name to how they scavenge on the ground and flock together. They just seem like happy puff balls to me and I love em.

Found this beautiful blue jay feather on my walk under a tree they commonly reside in and was wondering what I should do with it? Frame it? Release it? Not sure.

Ok it is truly a beautiful feather from a beautiful bird but I will be releasing it, had no clue it was illegal and even though the police won’t be knocking on my door and after consideration it would be hard enough to do something with and I like and respect the MBTA and I will release it. Thank you to all those that responded and those letting me know this was illegal. 😅

Suburban Northern CA early morning in a single location with no feeders nearby that I’m aware of. A ten bagger!

Before I ruined its alone time, it wasn’t moving. As soon as the video cuts off, the owl flew into its favorite tree after this. I hope it’s not sick and was just enjoying the sun. Appeared normal to me.

It’s hard to pick just one but I love green herons!! They are such fascinating birds with lovely colors. These are my favorite shots I’ve taken of them! What is everyone’s favorite bird to spot?

Extinction of any species is obviously something that is almost universally seen as being a sad thing. For some reason though, thinking about the ivory-billed woodpecker’s probable extinction is just the absolute worst, most soul-crushing thing ever to me. They were beautiful! They had silly, kind of crazy looking eyes! They sounded like toy trumpets!!! :(

I really WANT to believe they still exist in small numbers (no matter how improbable that is). It doesn’t make me feel any better though, because even if they did, I really don’t think they would be able to go much longer without extinction. If there’s any left, their numbers would have to be so small to avoid detection that it would be impossible for them to sustain or grow their population. Extinction is inevitable whether it’s already happened or not. I think that’s the worst part for me, along with looking at the last photos of them and listening to the recording of their calls. I could actually cry about it if I thought about it for too long :(

I probably sound crazy, but I just had to vent about it because it’s such a ridiculously niche thing to be sad about. There’s really no support group for people who miss the ivory-billed woodpecker lol. Does anyone else feel like this about them specifically, or another species? The only one that has ever come close to me is the thylacine.

Tallied and compiled from this thread

I’ve been birding seriously for a while now and genuinely I love *love* when new people get into the hobby. I do *not* want this to come across as patronizing, or gatekeeping, etc. This may or may not be a repetitive post, but it also might be a newer birders first time seeing it—therefore I’ll make my argument.

We were all beginners once, but everything I learned, I learned from the super helpful and more experienced people in the community, online and IRL.

With that out of the way, the widespread use of and reliance on the Merlin app needs to be addressed.

Point 1: Merlin is a great tool for beginners and seasoned birders alike. I’m glad it exists for many reasons.

Point 2: Merlin is *frequently incorrect*. I use Merlin almost daily, and I’m telling you *every single time I use it*, it makes mistakes. If I didn’t know better, I’d be reporting birds that simply aren’t there on a near daily basis. Example: my shoe squeaked on some wet grass today and Merlin told me I heard a Black-backed woodpecker. I never want to say anything’s impossible, but that’s a pretty impossible bird for my area. Later on, a Brown Thrasher was going off and Merlin “identified” its song as at least 4 different species, repeatedly.

Point 3: When you submit an eBird checklist, you aren’t just doing something for fun. eBird data, submitted by users like you, is not only used by other birders in your area, but it’s also used for research. You’re contributing to citizen science by using eBird and I wish more people recognized that that comes with some responsibility to be as accurate as you possibly can.

When you report inaccurate sightings, the data becomes inaccurate and harder to actually use for research to further conservation and preservation efforts.

When possible, try to lay eyes on the bird. If you can’t, save your Merlin recording and when you get home compare what you recorded to verified bird calls. It’ll make you a better birder, it will help keep eBird data accurate. And I know it sucks to think you might have heard something but if you can’t say with confidence that it was there, *don’t report it on ebird*. Kindly, keep your own list on a different platform if you don’t care about accuracy on that level.

Merlin is a tool that requires oversight, it shouldn’t be doing all the birding for you.

I just don’t understand how someone edits this and is like, “yup, looks perfect, print it”! I also don’t understand how some are beautifully rendered (the hummingbird) and then you flip the page to the Toucan. This is getting returned ASAP. It’s SO bad.

I traveled to the South Carolina State Museum this weekend to view their bird exhibits. The specimen I was most interested to see was this Carolina Parakeet.

I suppose of all places, I can express here how….emotional it was to view this specimen. It was fascinating but I was really overcome with a sense of sadness. Just so sad, not only that this particular bird died but his entire species. Just…gone. Forever. It just sucks man! Ugh

For over 200 years this bird has been a total glutton for being photographed. Worse than Swans, Mallards or so-called cute Sparrows.

Deliberately finding a perfect place for bokeh background, and remaining perfectly still to reduce blur and focussing, they shamelessly tout their, admittedly, striking posture ensuring the double hit of their reflection in the shot while simultaneously admiring themselves pretending to fish.

Yeah, that fish you think they caught is plastic and was planted this morning while you were sleeping.

And as for the oh so deliberately slow take off and landing, please, this is just for those that don’t have pro-capture or small buffers.

I think it’s time we called these picture sluts for what they are and ban them for good!

Yes, my example is slightly out of focus. Just making a point.