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So I just discovered this thread, and have some underwater pics to share. I run a photo and video log for all my underwater adventures, here’s a sample pulled from a trip last year. We spent a week onboard the Morning Star, one of the liveaboard sailboats operated by Blackbeard liveaboards out of Nassau, in the Bahamas. I’ve got plenty more from NC waters, Catalina Island, CA, and some of the caverns in north-central Florida that I can post up later, if anyone is interested.
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Dec 9, 2018 20:50
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These are all from the Wilmington, NC area, going to 25 miles offshore at the wreck of the John D. Gill. Recently(ish) discovered coral, found on the wreck of the Alexander Ramsey, 3 miles off of Wrightsville Beach, NC: “Blue Ivy Coral”, with bonus nudibranch.  This is a decorator urchin near the wreck of the R. R. Stone, 12 miles offshore. This tug formerly served in the port of Wilmington, before being sank as an artificial reef in the 1980’s. They have little suckers that they use to grab random shells, which they then push up to their apex like a hat.  This sand tiger shark was on the wreck of the Hyde, a former USACoE dredge that took part in Gen. Macarthur’s liberation of the Philippines, as well as finding a few magnetic mines in the gulf of Tonkin in the Vietnam war; quick thinking by the captain kept the ship from being a total loss, and I think the worst injury was someone getting a broken arm by getting thrown into a bulkhead. She lies 18 miles offshore from Carolina Beach.  A 2-spot cardinal fish, found on the wreck of the John D. Gill:  The John D. Gill is the only one of these that was sank by enemy fire (a nazi u-boat in WWII), all the rest were laid down as artificial reefs. The John D. Gill is also where the Merchant Marines gave out their first DSC, to the ship’s quartermaster (Edwin F. Cheney) for swimming through a burning oil slick while dragging a life raft, pausing only to throw survivors into the life raft as he came across them.
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Dec 9, 2018 21:55
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It started with a Hero5 on a selfie stick and weak flashlight, then I got this tray and light setup: Flashlights: 2x BigBlue (1200 lumens apiece), wide beam. Camera: still the Hero5. Filter: standard GoPro red lens. Gopros are great for video, but not so much for still photos...so I roll video at the highest resolution/framerate that my computer can tolerate (1080p, 60 frames/sec), and pull stills from there. My laptop gets cranky about doing much higher, and the free video editor I use to splice my clips together gets agitated and tries to eat all my memory if I try to go any higher. Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Dec 10, 2018 |
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Dec 10, 2018 02:01
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Cavern diving is a ton of fun, but I’m terrified of underwater caves. The springs in north-central Florida have some of the clearest water you’ll ever find, and the temp is nearly constant year-round. The cenotes are a bucket list dive for me, but until then I’ve got some places to hang out in Florida. Ginnie Springs:  This is ~20ft underwater, looking up at the trees around the spring.  This is the entrance to The Ballroom. There’s a cavern entrance in the dark spot, lower center/just to the left.  This is at the entrance to the Devil’s Eye cave. Swim out from where the first pic is and look up, that’s where I took the second one. Entrance to Devil’s Ear:  This area sits right where the clear spring water and murky river water meet, so the water there can have some really strange colors to it. There’s also outflow from the cave below, which is really strong. Get in far enough, and the water will purge your reg for you or try to rip your mask off. This is Devil’s Den. The spring is inside a sinkhole, you’ve got to walk down a carved stone staircase to get to where I took this. The chamber itself is ~150ft across, max depth 55ft. There are tons of little swim-throughs that mimic a cave, but sunlight is always visible and the way back out is always close. 
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Dec 10, 2018 02:33
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Had my last day volunteering at the NC aquarium at Fort Fisher, prior to me moving to FL. Dove with morays, with sharks, and of course, mermaids 😎 This is Shelldon. He was a late hatch in the nesting season, and ended up with a case of turtle pneumonia that left him in rehab so long he became acclimated to it, so now he stays with us. He’s a green sea turtle, and ~7 years old. He also wins the award for most boopable turtle snoot.  Our big green moray was interested in divers and mermaids alike (because they’re blind as all hell). He’s probably 6ft long, if he ever comes out of the crevice he likes to hide in.  This is the guy who did my checkout dives there 2 years ago. He’s a former SF guy that got blown up one time too many, so he moved to the beach to take a few college classes here and there and also dive the aquarium a few times a week.  The mermaids themselves came from the Weeki Wachee spring, in FL. They’ve got a show down there that they run a few times a day, and have been doing so since the 1940’s. Their hoses are different than scuba regulators, and awkward to breathe off of. A normal scuba reg lets you breathe more or less normally, it just through your mouth. Theirs are hoses with an on/off switch that has to be manually switched, and then it’s like breathing off of a free flowing regulator (if that regulator was forcing its air through a straw). They’re breathing off of that, they can’t see anything (they don’t dive with any masks/contacts/etc, and their eyes are always open), and they’re not wearing any thermal protection. They would come out shivering hard after a 20min show at our aquarium. Kourtney:  Julia:  Charlene:  Brittany (and me!):  (I didn’t take this one, all others are mine) And to round it out, a 6 year old bald eagle that had his broken wing heal wrong, and can’t fly (so he stays with us too). He also casts his judgement upon any who stray too close. 
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Mar 12, 2019 13:14
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Seeing the little ones do happy dances through the glass is one of my favorite sights when I’m there  I was costume diving as Anakin Skywalker (red lens mask, one glove, light saber, brown robe, lightsaber flashlight) and presented my lightsaber to a little girl dressed as Rey, and she did the best little happy dance I’ve ever seen 
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Mar 27, 2019 15:31
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:is that the park that got hosed up during the shutdown Yea, quote:either way gently caress anyone who messes with a national park, antiquities act for life qtiyd
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Apr 7, 2019 17:01
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Biscayne, but it’s ~95% water so you aren’t getting far without a boat  Others down here: Big Cypress Everglades Dry Tortugas (off of Key West)
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Apr 19, 2019 19:05
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Riding an airboat through the swamps is definitely a cool experience, but I can also see the rationale behind “if boat sinks, I’m alligator food”. There’s an abandoned nuclear missile silo near the Everglades visitor center that they run tours to, and those kinds of things always draw my attention. There’s a handful around the country you can actually go scuba diving in, if you look around. I know of at least 2, one in TX and one in southern WA.
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Apr 19, 2019 19:24
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:didnt pythons eat like everything that was there so now they're eating gators One ate a gator, then split itself open because the gator was too big for it to digest. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/photo-in-the-news-python-bursts-after-eating-gator-update/ I remember seeing this when it originally happened, and I’m sad to think that it was 13 years ago 
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Apr 19, 2019 21:36
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Mustang posted:Lena Lake, Olympic National Forest. Clouds rolled in low once I got up to the lake so no good mountain views.  drat dude! Those are pretty solid.
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Apr 22, 2019 02:15
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holocaust bloopers posted:One from Yellowstone today.  So I'm trying to get back into archery after a short hiatus, and need to re-fletch most of my arrows. I'm not in the mood to pay someone to do it, and I've seen fletching jigs on amazon for cheap-ish...are there any I should consider/avoid? Last time I took them to a shop about half of them ended up flying off (and that's where I stopped shooting), so I'd rather just do it myself than have someone else half-rear end it (I'm fully capable of doing that myself )
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May 1, 2019 02:43
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I'm setting this as my new background I'm doing some freediving photography tomorrow, hopefully I'll have something to contribute afterwards.
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May 3, 2019 03:30
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Went diving off of Key Largo yesterday, got plenty of pics and video to show for it quote:I got a chance to go out on 2 charters yesterday, with Rainbow Reef in Key Largo! Dive sites were the Spiegel Grove, the Benwood, Christ of the Abyss, and Dry Rock (near Christ of the Abyss). My camera battery ran out after the 3rd dive, but I still managed to get some good pics from the first 3
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May 19, 2019 21:18
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holocaust bloopers posted:Dive photography is like next level commitment I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it, but you’re right. Certifications, dive gear, boats, ocean weather, and other divers all conspire against you, and that’s before you consider the various injuries you can sustain underwater or gear theft/loss to the ocean. It’s my job (I dive for NPS, and I’m a divemaster on the side) but you have to keep a healthy respect for anything that could go wrong and end your life, your buddy’s life, leave you/your buddy maimed, or getting dropped into an underwater crisis out of nowhere and you have to be the one to rescue someone.
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May 20, 2019 00:46
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Went to Everglades National Park today! Stop looking, I cannot go when you look.  The grasshoppers had no fear. One tried to crawl up on my hand at one point while I was taking these.   A turtle keeps a watchful eye on the american  Another alligator!  I don't think I've ever seen a pink flower outside of a greenhouse. This was on one of the trails into the park a little bit.  All taken with my iphone 8. I found a longer trail I want to go back and check out (10k), but I didn't feel like taking the time to walk it out today/this summer. That may have to wait until October, when it is slightly less hellish outside.
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May 26, 2019 23:15
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my kinda ape posted:It's a loving thistle. Kill it! Kill it! ElMaligno posted:Please dont anger the scots. The scots sure are a contentious bunc-YOU JUST MADE AN ENEMY FOR LIFE!
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May 27, 2019 01:08
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Mustang posted:Went backpacking at the Royal Basin, Olympic National Park. This place just made my bucket list of places to go visit
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Jun 27, 2019 00:34
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:anyone here kayak? I have before, with ocean kayaks. They’re a little wider than the river version, and I thought they rode a little better. Some of them are the sit-on rather than sit-in version too, if you’re feeling weird about that part of being on a kayak.
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Jul 16, 2019 23:53
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I swear this thread has done more to add to my bucket list than anything else I’ve ever read. I need to get my camera out on the reefs at work, there’s some gorgeous stuff out there that nobody ever really gets to see. e: a lot of the really cool stuff in this thread comes from National Parks in the US, right? Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 18:57
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It’s a gorgeous day on Biscayne Bay today 
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Jul 26, 2019 13:55
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Taken today, at Molasses Reef (a few miles offshore from Key Largo). GoPro Hero5, freediving with a friend.        The sea turtle decided to chomp down on a jellyfish floating near me, in the first pic he's about to take a bite out of it The sunlight hit it just right to make it look fiery, the 3rd pic of it is closer to how they normally look. All of these are 30ft down or less.
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Sep 9, 2019 01:54
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Even when the weather wants me dead (there was a line of severe storms passing over the keys on this morning and a small craft advisory for offshore), this place is still gorgeous. On the way back in, we had a double rainbow greet us (but I didn't get a pic  )
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Sep 21, 2019 14:22
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I don’t really do astrophotography (I do the exact opposite, by going underwater ), but I’m playing with your pic in PS Express (Adobe’s free mobile post-processing app) and getting some fun results. It’s not full-on photoshop, there’s no adding/subtracting things that weren’t there/shouldn’t be there, but you can clean up a pic really well and work the various settings until you get something you like.  This was a few minutes worth of playing with lighting. I can’t bring out the stars without highlighting the light pollution as well, but thats just the nature of it. Things I did: Lowered exposure slightly Upped contrast slightly Dropped highlights to 0 raised shadows raised white levels Decreased black level to 0 That’s just the lighting options, there are other menus I didn’t play with.
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Sep 24, 2019 14:08
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If any of the rest of you are into underwater photography, Dive+ is a great app for post-processing. I don’t know what they do under the hood, but it comes out fairly well. They’ll leave a watermark somewhere along the bottom, though, so leave room to crop that out before you finish off the pic
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Sep 24, 2019 15:08
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I’ve been in Bonaire since last Friday diving my brains out, when I get back to a better connection I’ll have plenty of pics to share
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Oct 9, 2019 21:20
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First pic: young green sea turtle, gliding through the water without a single gently caress given.  More to follow when I get back to my place.
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Oct 13, 2019 16:04
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More pics from Bonaire! Potentially my best selfie so far:  Turtle-friend, from before: Another green sea turtle-friend:  I think this is a speckled (or spotted?) moray:  Maze coral:  An inverted filefish, scraping coral for food:  The next 3 are a set. They're all from inside/near a shipwreck called the Hilma Hooker, on the south end of the island. The ship itself is rolled over hard on its port side. It was a drug boat that was impounded by the local government, then it rusted to the point of being too much to restore, then they sank it as an artificial reef (so the story goes). The corridor I'm in right here, the right hand side was the deck when this ship was upright.  This is looking up (now) but this hallway used to connect the hallway in the previous pic to the hallway next to it. I think this was the ship's bridge, or at least that area?  Looking at the prop/rudder.  I think this is some kind of glassy sponge, but I'm mostly clueless when it comes to invertebrate life underwater.  A french angelfish, giving some mean side-eye:   This coral enchanted me for some reason. I saw a ton of it, which made me happy too M. aliciae, which makes sense because the first dive site I noticed at is called "Alice in Wonderland"  A porcupinefish (puffer relative). Probably between 1-1.5ft long.  This one is a honeycomb trunkfish. They always look so grumpy   A smooth trunkfish. Apparently these guys are toxic to touch? Idk, I don't touch marine life if I can help it.  A stoplight parrotfish. Their intermediate phase is red with random white scales, then they turn into this:  This is a carribbean reef squid. I got inked at by one of these guys, then it decided it was curious and wanted to have a closer look at all these weird bubble breathers.  When you're out on a dive and something green bites your thigh...THAT'S A MORAY  
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Oct 14, 2019 00:53
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They can’t see for anything, and when they open/shut their mouths constantly that’s just them breathing. They open up to draw in new water, then closing their mouth forces that water back over their gills. That being said, they are the inspiration for the double-jaw of the Xenomorphs from Aliens, so if one gets ahold of you it won’t be too pretty
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Oct 14, 2019 03:51
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Seconding that that pic looked great. Was that a breaching whale?
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Oct 20, 2019 14:04
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Anyone got any favorite trails in the Everglades? Thinking about heading out there next weekend for some trail time, I’ve got one in mind but I don’t know the name of if (just a vague location  )
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Dec 8, 2019 23:19
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If the snorkeling tours at Biscayne are running, I’d recommend those too Those are extremely weather-dependent though, and we’re in the windy season right now...
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Dec 8, 2019 23:30
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Heading to the Everglades again today! I’m also moving to Cape Hatteras soon, to work for the summer. Has anyone been there, or knows anything pretty in the area? The NC aquarium at Roanoke Island is on my list, as is the British military cemetery on the island. There’s a grave site at NCARI of a man whose team stole the lives of 9 people from the maw of an Atlantic hurricane in 1896 that I also want to visit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_Island_Life-Saving_Station The ship these guys were on was torpedoed by a nazi sub, and sank within a minute; all 37 aboard died, but some of their bodies washed up shortly afterwards. They were buried on the outer banks, and the coast guard maintains the site on behalf of the Royal Navy. http://www.offbeattravel.com/british-cemetery-outerbanks.html e for content: This is a dive I did on the wreck of theJohn D. Gill, a tanker that was torpedoed off the coast of Wilmington, NC. The wreck today is a twisted mess of scrap and burned metal rusting away, barely even recognizable as a ship; the bow still stands proud, but there isn’t a ton of vertical relief to the site (not what you’d expect for a ship that was 540’ long when she was afloat). There’s something for everyone in the story of her sinking. https://youtu.be/yA3kJhcdmNE Luck: the ship didn’t initially catch fire, but the oil holds were busted open and leaking into the ocean. Idiot/bad luck: the ship may have stayed afloat, or at least an orderly abandon was possible...until someone threw a life ring with a self-igniting flare on it into the oil-covered water. Cue the start of the apocalyptic inferno. Bad to worse: the fires spread and caused several explosions, one of which destroyed 2 life boats. Not that some of the others fared any better, because the ship began to capsize and dumped a different life boat out just ahead of the still-spinning props. Nobody from those boats survived. Worse to If you’re keeping score, the ship was: Torpedoed Set aflame (accidentally) Suffered several explosions, some of which took out lifeboats Capsized, and dumped out other lifeboats Broke in half on the way down Out of the literal flames of an apocalyptic inferno, a hero rose. The 24-year old quartermaster (Edwin F Cheney), having found a life boat after jumping off the ship, decided that an apocalyptic inferno was a weak little bitch undeserving of respect or taking the lives of his fellow sailors. He swam through it while towing a life raft to grab buddies of his that were on random floating things here and there. Some of them were too weak to do anything other than hold on, but that didn’t matter: Cheney actually threw some of those guys into the life raft he was busy carrying. He accounted for about half of the survivors of the attack. For his Herculean efforts, Edwin F Cheney was awarded the very first Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Cross. Icon Of Sin fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 15:41
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Made a new friend today in the Everglades  
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Jan 12, 2020 22:58
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It woke up and stretched out a little bit before going back to sleep, it was seriously
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Jan 12, 2020 23:15
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Keep an eye (and maybe a camera) skyward, Betelgeuse is being weird. facialimpediment posted:Completely outside of my usual posting topic, the star Betelgeuse might blow up into a supernova sometime soon! Or not. Maybe. They're not really sure!
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Feb 9, 2020 23:41
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Had some pelicans come up and check us out while we were cleaning up a local canal.  My old job was focused on cleaning beaches and areas within a National Park on the ocean, and my volunteers and I pulled out nearly 14,000 lbs of garbage since December
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Feb 29, 2020 13:36
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Sunrise on the outer banks:  Shark’s eye/moon snail shell:  American Oystercatchers, taken through a 50x spotting scope: 
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Mar 30, 2020 00:40
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My supervisor loves pics, so I’ve got a ton of pictures of American oystercatchers on my phone right now. 
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Apr 19, 2020 16:45
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Yea, they’re the tags we use to ID individuals. There’s a website run by the USGS where we can report them if we want more info, like who banded it, bird age, sex, banding location, etc. It’s how we know who comes back, these birds tend to have strong pair loyalty and site loyalty.
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Apr 19, 2020 17:11
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