Blog - Chuq Von Rospach - Birds - Landscapes - Nature

So a Ruff, which is a eurasian shorebird that’s not supposed to be in North America, showed up in a wetlands near Sequim, I decided to chase it (because it’s mid-summer and there’s little of interest to bird right now overall). I showed up on day 3, and of course, the Ruff only stuck around for two days. Such are the joys and challenges of birding. It’s been a really weird year for Ruffs, by the way. It’s a well known vagrant and there are usually a few scattered around North America every…

On Island Time6FPS V8#8: August 10, 2026E-mail: chuqvr@gmail.com • Site: https://chuq.meBlueSky: (https://bsky.app/profile/chuq.bsky.social)Know someone who might want to subscribe?Want to see previous issues? Visit here:

Well, technically bumblebees. Our Lavender and our Fuschias are doing very well this year, and because of that, we have very happy bees. Many of them. I’ve been meaning to sit and try to photograph them, and today, I finally got around to it, and I was not disappointed. It seems we have two different species here, Yellow-faced Bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii) and Fuzzy-horned Bumblebee (Bombus mixtus). And they’re happy, busy little bees.This is quite different from my normal photography, and it…

While I was out birding, I was told by another birder that there were chicks in the nest at Fay Bainbridge, so after I failed to find the Arctic Tern (again), I headed over to see what was going on. In these pictures, you can see the two chicks. They are quite close to being ready to fledge, and each one spent about 15 minutes exercising their wings and doing short test flights from one side of the nest to the other. There was one adult sitting next to the nest when I arrived, and it left as I…

I got a question from a friend I thought, after answering, would be of interest to a wider audience, so I’m sharing it here. If you have thoughts about this, I’d love to hear them.I am still committed to LRC, but enjoyed your discussions about your transition to Lightroom Mobile and it has me rethinking which version of LR is best for my workflow and if LR is even the best answer.Did you investigate moving to Photos?Why do you stay in LR vs using Photos?I had to think about this for a bit.I use…

We’ve made it to August, somehow, so I figured now was a good time to do a check in on the birds here at the house and around the region. Summer is the slow time for birding — everyone is settled in to their place so there’s no migration going on, and by July, nesting is finishing up and the chicks are out and about. Late July showed the first sign of migration, and those are the shorebirds, but there’s not a lot going on right now. What I’ve been doing the last few weeks is trying (and…

The LA Times published an article on changes in bird populations, Some birds defy overall plunge in bird numbers, and a friend asked me for my thoughts on it, especially compared to early research and studies showing that in North America we’ve lost over 3 billion birds since 1970. I have thoughts. My first reaction was Life is complicated.Something lost in the initial “3 billion birds lost” report was that number was heavily weighted to a relatively few very common species.That said, focusing…

I’m happy to announce I’ve released a new set of free wallpapers you can use on your computer. Please go to my Free Desktop Wallpaper page to download any or all of them. You can see the new images below:I love putting my images up on my computer as wallpapers as a way to always have them in view where I can study and enjoy them. I also like making them available so others can enjoy them as well.These are some of my favorite images that I feel work nicely as wallpapers. They are sized with an…

Welcome to the new issue of 6FPS.Welcome to July, where every year we celebrate our independence on the 4th, and I celebrate another year of being vertical (#68) which I consider a win. And out in the garden, the berries are ripening. For my birthday Laurie bought me a really nice Lego kit that I am looking forward to putting together. I’m a couple of kits behind because I’ve been doing other things instead, but this will be a nice one to display.

I finally had tides, weather and free time cooperate so I was able to get over to Seabeck to spend time with the eagles. I had a total of about 2.5 hours over two days with tides ranging from -1 to -4, and they did not disappoint. On day one there were a total of 33 there at one point, and on day 2, about 25. There’s a Purple Swallow nest tower near there so I was able to grab a few photos of them as well.1500 images shot, edited down to 36 keepers; not a bad ratio. View fullsize View fullsize

Welcome to Middle Age6FPS V8#6: June 8, 2026E-mail: chuqvr@gmail.com • Site: https://chuq.meBlueSky: (https://bsky.app/profile/chuq.bsky.social)Know someone who might want to subscribe?Want to see previous issues? Visit here:

In May, I spent two nights down in the Grays Harbor area to do some birding. This was towards the tail end of spring migration, and I was hoping to see some nice shorebirds. Overall, the birding was okay, although I wasn’t able to bird Grays Harbor NWR properly because it’s half a mile walk each way to the main trails, and my knee did a big NOPE on the idea. Highlight bird was a Glaucous Gull, a rarity that was hanging out on the beach in Ocean Shores. It was also one of the easiest lifer…

I am someone who haven’t used the new AI chatbots much, but I have been curious about how they might be useful in the things I do. So when I read in the Summer 2026 Avocet (from Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance) about how Matthew Dodder (an old friend and birding mentor) decided to try AI as a tool to plan some birding trips, I figured I’d try out Claude and see if it would give me useful suggestions. I asked Claude two questions:I am planning a "big day" birding outing for Kitsap county,…

I’ve been a user of the Bird ID tool Merlin for a number of years now, and it has improved massively since it was first released. That said, there was one thing it didn’t do well, and that’s help a user of the tool understand how reliable it’s ID was — it more or less treated it’s findings as 100% correct, which is incorrect (and honestly, not possible). However, a couple of months ago Merlin made a significant update to the app, and now it does take into consideration the likelihood of a…

While I am getting ready for a few days down in the Gray’s Harbor area chasing shorebirds, I had a day where I could get out and bird locally, and I realized the Caspian Terns were back from their winter sabbatical, so I headed out to Port Gamble hoping some would be there and that maybe I could get a few photographs. I was not disappointed. It was a good day birding, and a better day taking photos of them, with 20+ species found and a good 45 minutes watching and chasing photos of the Terns…

congrats apple on making it 50 years

I did a lot.

I talk about Steve. It’s complicated

Apple is turning 50. I have thoughts

The March issue of my monthly newsletter is out