First I want to make an announcement that there will be no Free Gif Friday tomorrow. I'm not going to make gifs anymore on a weekly basis. Although I do enjoy making them, they simply take up to much time. I'll only make one if I feel really inspired.
It also distracts too much from what Gardenbsquared is all about and I want to focus more on that.
GBS is all about the garden, nature and life. It's not just about my own little garden but also our beautiful planet which can and should be a Garden of Eden.
The name Gardenbsquared has multiple meanings. The first is that I want our Garden of Eden to be squared. Meaning that I would like to see that all life on this planet flourishes.
The second one is that I would like my own garden to be squared. I hope to buy some land in the future and become more self sufficient.
The third one is that I would like to share all the B's in the garden. With B's I mean birds, bugs, butterflies, bees and nature and wildlife in general.
So that's what I'm going to focus on from now on. Lately I've been to distracted and lost my focus. That's probably the reason I haven't been posting so much lately.
There's a difference between birding and bird-watching. The main difference is that a bird-watcher is looking at birds while a birder looks for them. A birder goes out to see as many different species as possible. Some fanatic birders will go through great lengths to see a rare bird as recently happened in New York.
On 7 November a very rare Corn Crake was spotted on Long Island, east of New York City. Birders from all over the United States hurried to see it. A couple doing a "Big Year" even parachuted in to add the bird to their list. More than a hundred birders showed up to see the Corn Crake which was last documented in 1963. It was shot in a remote rye field. This poor bird also died unfortunately because a few days later it was hit by a car. You can read the whole story here.
I'm primarily a bird watcher. I've always enjoyed watching birds. As a teenager I would go out in the fields to watch them with my binoculars which my parents gave me for my tenth birthday. I had a notebook and my bird guide but not so many birds.
Suriname, on the other hand, is a birders paradise. More than 730 species live in this small country. As an amateur bird-watcher I've only spotted a fraction of them. My lifetime list of birds in Suriname is at 52. My goal is to make that a hundred before the end of the year. That will be very difficult.
House wren (Troglodytes aedon)
Wing-barred Seedeater (Sporophila Americana)
Last Monday I went out to spot as many species of birds in and around our garden as possible. I spotted 29 species that day including two that I've never spotted before. One is the Greyish Saltator (Saltator coerulescens).
When you're out looking for birds it's also important to use your ears. It was by sound that I discovered this one and since I recognise a lot of bird calls I was quite convinced that I haven't spotted it before. I had to wade through a field with high grass and deep vegetation to get close enough to take a picture. Which is not wise wearing flip-flops in an area where there are poisonous snakes. But another one added. Yeah.
The other bird added to my list, which was already visiting our garden regularly, is this hummingbird.
Blue-tailed Emerald (Chlorostilbon mellisugus)
I was so thrilled to take this picture but I thought it was just another Glittering-throated emerald. They look very much alike. Identifying birds can be very difficult.
This bird is less than three inches long and weighs 2,6 grams. Now let that sink in for a while. That's half a sugar cube. It's not even a teaspoon full. So much wonder packed in this little bird; wings, bill, eyes, hart, brain, longs and so much more, weighing only 2,6 grams. I find that absolutely mind boggling.
As I said, I spotted 29 birds last Monday. It only took me a couple of hours to do so. Of course there was the Great Kiskadee.
Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus)
This is probably their nest.
The Rudy Ground Dove is always one of the first birds that you'll see.
All the pictures that you see were taken last Monday. I was able to photograph 22 birds that day.
Pale-breasted Thrush (Turdus leucomelas)
Blue-grey Tanager (Tangara episcopus)
Yellow Oriole (Icterus nigrogularis)
My hope is to make a trip to the interior one day. At Raleigh Falls / Voltzberg there is a nature reserve where more than 470 species of birds have been spotted. But I have to learn more about the birds around here first. Once you know a bird it's much easier to spot. Like this Black-capped Donacobius (Donacobius atricapilla). I saw this bird for the first time a couple of weeks ago near Weg naar Zee. And since then I've seen it a couple of times close to our house.
The vultures were of course flying high in the sky. Way to far to take a decent picture.
Lesser yellow-headed vulture (Cathartes burrovianus)
There's not a day that goes by without spotting the Blue-black grassquit (Volatinia jacarina).
And of course the __Wattled Jacana (Jacana jacana) can always been seen in the canals as well.
The birds that I didn't photograph but did see were the Green-rumped Parrotlet (Forpus passerinus), Red-breasted Blackbird (Sturnella militaris), Snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis), Striated Heron (Butorides striata striata), Tropical Kingbird (Tyrannus Melancholicus), Crested Oropendola (Psarocolius decumanus) and the Silver-beaked Tanager (Ramphocelus carbo).
I would like to finish this post with the remainder of the birds that I photographed last Monday.
Variegated Flycatcher (Empidonomus varius)
Purple Martin (Progne subis)
Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia)
Palm Tanager (Thraupis palmarum)
Tropical Mockingbird (Mimus gilvus)
Pied Water-tyrant (Fluvicola pica)
Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis)
Smooth-billed Ani (Crotophaga ani)
White-headed marsh tyrant (Arundinicola leucocephala)
I hope you enjoyed these birds as much as I do. Of course there's no substitute for real life. So if you love birds, why not go out there and try to spot a few yourself or just lean back in your garden and enjoy watching them.
Much love,
Gardenbsquared
Glad you are on the nature and birth track again, a bit more quality time to be out there trying to photograph these beautiful creatures compared to sitting in front of a screen. The hummingbird pictures are amazing.
And i am also very happy to hear some meaning about your name, never got that and it is grandiose, square it all, much love.
Being out there is the best of course. I was wondering if anybody understood what the name meant. I'm glad that you can appreciate what the name stands for. Thank you and much love.
xose
folow upvote and comment done
plz back dude, thanks
... and 4th meaning is Garden BS which seems doubly relevant both as Garden Bull Shit meaning shooting the bull about gardening, but also in reference to manure / fertilizer?
This is a FANTASTIC post! Sorry for shouting in caps there, I got excited :) I am so happy to have found you and following you for more awesome sauce. Both a very well written post (you have a really nice command of language, you get the point across succinctly without being dry), super informative both on the broader topic of bird-watching/birding and the more specific topic of what birds you yourself found last weekend! What variety! Lovely pictures as well. Much love - Carl
When I started reading your comment I thought for a second that you were taking the piss out of me. Lol. But this must be one of the nicest comments I ever received. Thank you.
Great photos! I have a nest of hawks in the oak tree behind my house. I love to see them soaring around the skies.
Oh wow, I would love to see a picture if you have any. Do you know what kind of hawks they are?
I'm not sure, I think they are red-shouldered hawks. The tree that they nest in is huge and they are at the very top. If I tried to get a pic, it would look like your vulture one unless I got lucky and caught them perched on my fence.
xose
folow upvote and comment done
plz back dude, thanks
@gardenbsquared You have shared a captivating post, and each one of the photographs are so certifiable and natural. I am taking a gander at them over and over and simply looking again and again as they are so alluring.
xose
folow upvote and comment done
plz back dude, thanks
Great photos. Would you mind sharing which camera and lens you use? cheers
Thanks. I use the Canon 5D III and the Canon 70-200mm f/4 IS USM.
Amazing, that is bewildering!! I figure I should moreover get it, since I can't keep myself from doing all things considered, as this camera finds beguiling pictures.
Wow! What an excellent post! It's so cool to see birds that are familiar to me in Oregon USA alongside what I consider to be very exotic birds :)
Thank you. Yes we have some migrating birds from North America. Like the Yellow Warbler and the Purple Martin.
birds is really change our girden and world, It's pretty amazing! and awesome, thanks for nice birds photo sharing
@followed and upvoted for you
Thank you. If we can appreciate the birds that share the world with us, maybe we can respect our world a bit more as well.
I also love watching birds singing. My little daughter always run after birds anytime she sees it. Trying to catch it.
Birds are part of nature that beautify our environment since they come in different colors.
You are great to have known bird calls.@gardenbsquared. I wish I can sing along with birds. It will be so nice, I think.
And You have nice pictures of the birds. They are beautiful pictures.
Thank you @seyiodus, birds are part of the beauty of nature as are we. I wish that I can sing along with the birds. I tried it last week with the Smooth-billed Ani. And guess what, these birds did response. Let's hope that our future generations can share this beauty as well.
Maybe I will try it also but it entails whistling and I don't know how to whistle.
If we teach them from now, then they will appreciate it.
@carlgnash from the @humanbot Human Certified Original Works Initiative has manually determined this post to be the original and truly creative work of the post author.
Learn more:
https://steemit.com/curation/@carlgnash/what-human-certified-original-works-means-to-me-a-totally-unofficial-mission-statement-from-just-one-person-in-a-decentralized
Thanks for being an original and creative content creator! You rock!
If one is truly passionate about something, he/ she brings out something special in his/ her work and makes it more engaging for others too. Like I told you before, I am not enthusiastic about birds, but the way you talk about them is just so engaging that I cannot help but go through your posts on birds. While all the pictures are lovely, the shots of the hummingbird are brilliant! Also congrats on the great curie discovery. So happy for you!
Yes that was a pleasant surprise. I'm glad you like reading my birding posts. Is your son still interested in them as well? Thank you very much. I hope a curie reward will come your way as well. You deserve it.
Yes he is very much interested in birds and animals :) The pleasure is mine and yes, I received two big curie upvotes when my rep was below 52 and after that I did get a few small upvotes by curie.
That's great to hear. I do apologise for the late reply. I've got three now but in the end we have to rely on each other. We have to build this community of like minded people. That's what steem should be all about.
Oh please there is absolutely no need to apologize. All of us have so much going on in our lives and around us that it is likely to become occupied with that stuff. Yes, you are 100% right on relying on one another because that's how a community is built and that's how it grows. :)
wow feels good to see all these birds... please post more of this kind.
I love it..
That's nice, thank you. Next Sunday or Monday I'll do another post about the birds in Suriname.
really nice
Beuri
It's as good as time as any to list what I thing Steem needs ASAP:
User/platform configurable rewards distribution: The hardcoded 75%/25% Author/Curators split is something I'd like to see customizable. This ratio should be configurable within the comment_options operation and support between 0/100 and 100/0 ratios. Each Steem powered website could either set this ratio at the platform level or surface the choice to the end user via the interface. Different types of content deserve different types of rewards and by allowing this option to be configurable, it opens Steem up to different opportunities.
Reimagining Bandwidth and Account Creation: Account creation sucks right now, and while I know HF20 is set to address some of these problems, we very much need a way to create free accounts for people. Free accounts would also imply that the bandwidth system will need adjusting as will the requirements on account creation. This is the biggest hurdle towards adoption in my opinion, I can't really market chainBB to the wider world yet simply because most of them probably won't go through the trouble of creating a Steem blockchain account. I don't have a silver bullet solution for this but it needs to be a top priority.
A more advanced account/key structure: The account management via keys right now has a lot of blemishes. I believe we need to reimagine the levels of account security and go above and beyond posting and active. A dynamic key system where I could create a key pair and grant it permission to specific operations would be ideal. I want to be able to create a specific key for my price feed and failover, which doesn't have access to transfer my funds out. I'd like to be able to assign a specific key on the powerbot accounts specifically for delegation operations. The more fine control we have over this system, the better types of apps can be built upon Steem. SteemConnect could do amazing things with a key system like this.
Rethinking content storage: Steem at this rate is going to grow unfathomably large, with a lot of garbage in the blockchain. It's going to need some method of pruning/sharding/subchains/sidechains/something to reduce/divide it's overall footprint. I'm identifying it as a problem, but I don't have a great solution. I just know it'll be an issue in the future if Steem has any sort of monumental growth to it.
Standardization around content and it's meta: We need standard practices for how different frontends interact with data on the blockchain. Currently each frontend has no respect towards the custom data other platforms are setting within a post. It would go a long ways to have a set of best practices, guidelines and set methods to respect the data between all the platforms being built on the blockchain.
Beneficiaries Payouts: Currently beneficiary rewards only pay out in SP. These rewards should pay out in whatever method the author of the post chooses (50/50 SBD/SP or 100% SP).
I'm sure I could list more - but I'll stop here :)
😁😁
source I don't no😂
@gardenbsquared
nice photo keep it up bro
are you really photographer
@gardenbsquared
I'm an amateur enthusiast. Thank you.
wow...its a great post
Thank you, anything particular that you liked about it?
Nice
Good post, I am a photographer, it passes for my blog and sees my content, I hope that it should be of your taste, you have my vote :D greetings
nice photo .... must be fun
hey good post, very interesting, very beautiful photos you have my vote and I follow you to continue reading your publications, go through my profile, maybe you find a publication that you like
regards. STEEM ON !.
- Critic-on
Most beautiful Blue-tailed Emerald. So little and weighs only 2,6 grams. :-) amazing.
It's absolutely amazing. Thank you for reading my post.
very beautiful
hy. My pearl cockatiel flew away today!And i think its in your garden He flew up onto a tall palm tree. I got onto my roof with his cage and played familar music to calm him. Finally, 3 hours later he flew down and was circling my house a couple times, getting ready to land near me, when a big black bird started chasing him. My bird was way too fast for the other one, but now he is far away, nowhere to be found. :( I hope he finds someone who will take care of him. %!@# that black bird! :'(. if you get it plz return me. i realy thankful to you.
If I see it, I'll ask it to fly back to you.
Very nice
i enjoy reading your post and beautiful photos as well :) keep it up
Wow sooo cute birds😍😍
nice post
i enjoy it ..
I have followed you .
I hope you follow me back
brilliant post thanks so much. such clear pictures. I was worried about the one bathing in sand. a tiny moment in time
Congratulations @gardenbsquared!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:
I really like your posts, worth in the example for his future for me
xose
folow upvote and comment done
plz back dude, thanks
amazing!!