Mokka mit Schlag

A friendly suggestion for local Audubon and Sierra Club chapters and bird clubs everywhere: When posting directions for field trips, please try to provide the nearest possible full street address. These days many of us are using GPS systems, and when wandering through a strange city, it’s a lot easier to find an address such as “120 Via Verde, San Dimas, CA” than to follow directions like, “From the Pasadena (110) Freeway, exit Orange Grove Ave, and proceed south across Mission St. (where Orange Grove jogs to the right) to El Centro St. Turn west (right) on El Centro and park in the first block.”

By all means give the directions too for those folks who aren’t using a GPS. And sometimes, there just aren’t any street addresses anywhere near the meeting site. But when you’re birding in a major metro area like Los Angeles, the street address helps a lot.

Merrick’s Pyralid Moth, Hodges 5117, Loxostegopsis merrickalis
Casper’s Wilderness Park, Orange County, California, USA
June 29, 2008

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I’m experimenting with AdSense for Feeds to see if I can increase the revenue from these sites from its current level at which my time would be more profitably spent digging in the couch for lost change.

This has required some changes to the feeds (they are now redirected through FeedBurner) so holler if anything looks awry. If it borks up, I’ll just kill the feed ads. The only real money this site makes is from the Amazon affiliate sales anyway. (Hmm, I wonder if I can sneak those into the feeds somehow?)

If this works, soon the feeds too will contain adds for “American Touch Painting”, “Top O.C. Divorce Attorney (Aggressive & Caring Representation)”, “Internet Dispute with a Free Telephone Consultation with Aggressive Lawyers”, and “Tummy Tuck Orange County”. Hmm, Maybe this wsn’t such a good idea after all. I wonder if AdBlock Plus works for feeds?

There are somewhere over 10,000 different species of moths in North America. Sometimes even the larger ones can go unidentified. Here’s one from Shoreline Park in Mountain View that has as yet resisted efforts at identification:

If anyone recognizes it, please comment.

Unknown Species, genus, and family
Shoreline Park, Mountain View, 2008-05-07

Update

It took a few years but the current (January, 2011) thinking is that this is in the genus Tetracis. Exact species still indeterminate.

I’m still trying to make up my mind as to which DSLR to buy. I long ago decided on Canon, and the Rebel’s a little small and a little too low on the megapixels for my tastes. In my price range, that leaves the 50D and the 5D Mark II (or equivalent older models, but I like newer toys. :-) ). The primary difference between these two are:

1. The 50D is an APS-C sensor with a 1.6x Field-of-view crop. The 5D is a full 35mm camera.
2. The 5D has 21 megapixels vs. 15 megapixels on the 5D.

I like to take pictures of two things: birds and bugs. (For family, friends, and pets I can use a point-and-shoot.) Keeping that in mind what makes sense?
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Silver Argiope, Argiope argentata, female
Robert E. Badham Marine Life refuge, Corona del Mar, 2008-10-09
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