Subject: An important birding lesson
Date: Nov 5 10:42:24 2003
From: Guttman, Burt - GuttmanB at evergreen.edu


Connie Sidles sent a message today about the geese at Bowerman that carries
an important lesson that I want to emphasize. And I think we should all be
grateful to Connie for it; it's something that I didn't know, and I'll bet
most birders are equally ignorant, but the point is generally important for
a lot of situations in birding. Here's what she wrote:

I will caution everyone about trying to identify brown and
brownish-gray tones in varying light conditions. Neutral colors like browns
and grays can more easily take on the overtones of ambient light than other
more strongly colored hues. In printer's terms, that's because these tones
are made of equal amounts of all the primary colors. So if the ambient light
adds any color of its own, the neutral tones take it on very readily. This
is an especially important effect in photography.

I would suggest that when you try to separate brown from gray in the
wild, especially if the tones are similar in intensity, that rather than
look at the absolute color, you compare the color to a better-known color.
Luckily, there are plenty of Canada geese near the bean/pink-footed geese at
all times.

Thank you, Connie!

Burt Guttman guttmanb at evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 360-456-8447
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S.E., Olympia 98503