I guess you’re a birder if you keep a list. A birder is the official name for a bird watcher. Like any hobby, it can be taken to the extreme. I’m definitely on the casual end. For instance, I have made no attempt to count seagulls, or gulls as I was gently schooled by Marie at BAYarts.  I think Marie keeps a list, too.

Marie did me a kindness a few weeks ago. We were chatting on the front porch of BAYarts after I had taught my Thursday class when she asked me if I had ever seen a Barred Owl. I told her I had not. “Well, there’s one right there,” she said, pointing to an oval hole about 30 feet up in a tree about 40 yards away.

Sure enough, a fledgling was sitting right in the opening. And all I had was my iPhone. So I tracked it Friday and Saturday with some better equipment and photographed it on two occasions as it waited for it’s mother to return from shopping. I never saw the mother, and I never saw the fledgling sit up in the opening again like the first night. By Sunday the nest was vacated.

But I had a solid photo, which my daughter absolutely loved because of that Harry Potter thing, I guess. And she’s 21 now. So that was nice.

When I was a kid, whenever we saw a swarm of birds flying in an aerial ballet, we called it a “wedding.” As in, “that’s my wedding.” I don’t know the origin, I don’t know why. But I know now that their performance is called a murmuration, but only if they were Starlings.

If they were Larks, for instance, it would be an Exhaltation, for Pheasants, a Nide and for Goldfinches, a Charm. Some collective nouns for birds in flight are not so kind. Like a Murder of Crows, Pandemonium of Parrots and an Unkindness of Ravens. As a Browns fan I can relate to that.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been following the progress at a Robin’s nest in my backyard. She built her nest in the most photo-opportunistic location possible, at the corner of a patio structure, surrounded by vines.

I have been posting photos on Instagram (as pixellarry) from the start, the first one showing three blue eggs in the nest, of which one bird remains. But on Sunday I set up a 300mm f4.5 lens with a 1.4 extender and settled in. Within 10 minutes I had my photo.

I already had a Robin on my bird list, but the Barred Owl was a nice addition. Oh, and I also saw a White-Crowned Sparrow.

Happy Birthday to my Dad. He would have been 89 today.

The film is back. After a 10-month hiatus from by pinhole camera, I finally had a look at what I photographed on April 29, the annual Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

In the end, I decided to enter the one shown above, a close pick over the one shown below. You can only enter one. And there are no prizes.

I like both of them but they project very different thoughts. The top image follows one of the basic tenets of composition, the line. Specifically, converging diagonal lines. It forces you eye to the center, in this case, the Cleveland skyline. Alternating black and medium gray areas create triangles. It's very direct and simple, a lot like my previous work.

The alternative image, at left (click to view larger) is full of tension, full of crossing lines and angles with a curve thrown in. The skyline is barely visible. It shows at least three bridges, a trademark of the Flats. It's gritty, but to me it's more Cleveland.

I would appreciate your comments. And to see more pinhole photos, go to the gallery for the 2012 Worldwide Pinhole Day.

It's been almost year since I took my last pinhole photo. And almost that long since I photographed a reconstruction. I'm not sure why it's been that long, but the distractions of last summer certainly were a part, I'm sure.

In the meantime I've been blazing away with my iPhone, posting most of my images to Instagram. It's too bad they were gobbled up by Facebook and it's been interesting watching the "serious" photographers that use the site search for an alternative. But I digress.

Sunday was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I have participated each of the last five years. And to keep the streak going, I forced my self to head out Sunday a.m. to downtown Cleveland to see what I could see. I ended up making nine exposures at several locations. The film is at the lab and will report back when it's done.

It was relaxing and nothing seemed forced. I ended up trying some compositions that were a little more complex than my usual scenes. We'll see.

So while we wait for the film to be processed, here's a reconstruction I made with my iPhone, something I have not tried before. Not thrilled about the results, but it's good to get back on the horse.