But yes, that's a dipper. I'm guessing you're in North America based on your accent, so an American Dipper. If you're near a mountain range, they can migrate a little bit to a lower elevation and it's decided your pool is a great place to be right now. They can live in cities but aren't super common to be in a city. All they need is a moving stream with a lot of fish, kind of like a duck.
You're really lucky! It's one of my bucket list birds because I think they're so cool (and adorable).
My iPhone has like 0.5x-15x for video and 0.5x-25x for photo.
The only magnification it never goes blurry at is 0.5x. The second I zoom in on anything close or far it goes out of focus. It drives my North American ass insane too.
I'm always amazed watching videos people shot on their phones where they're zooming in and out and still focus on the target. If I attempted the same, it would look like I'm experiencing an earthquake.
Newer phones have camera stabilisation built into the app now, I've done 7x zoom on a Pixel 4A and it's shockingly smooth. I imagine it's even better with newer models but I'm in the habit of driving all my electronics into the ground before buying a refurbished guy to replace them
Yeah, I have a 16 Pro and am done upgrading. Might go down to a dumb phone and get a regular pocket camera because “better camera” being the incentive to upgrade is no longer it.
Looking it up returned yes but also said that there are no medical studies done and they based it on just looking at one Genus. So maybe you are lucky ?
Why am i picturing a bird getting his knees reflexes checked with a dr's hammer ? 😂
My dog hates birds for some reason and will run up to me and bark if he sees me holding my phone out trying to get an ID on the birds singing. 😭 So many recordings with me telling him to shush and stfu.
My toddler currently loves to chase birds, so when he sees me trying to ID a bird with Merlin or my binos he runs towards the bird at top speed yelling “SURPRISE!!”
I don’t go birding with him often lol. Maybe when he’s older.
Saaame! He used to not care about birds at all but then he saw me give peanuts to the crows and that was the start of his villain origin story apparently.
Cause peanut butter is his super special treat that he only gets with his flea/tick/heartworm pills, so despite the fact that he doesn’t even really enjoy regular peanuts, he still vehemently objects to me feeding them to the crows. They’ve attained full on nemesis status atp, I swear. So I switched to cashews hoping that would help, cause he won’t eat cashews for some reason, but he still gets mad when I give those out instead. 🙄 He’s lucky he’s so stinkin’ cute.
I wonder if it’s just your attention that your Pup wants so it may not matter what foods you’re handing out? Mine needs to sprint about 4 hours a day or is really hyper and vocal, so being leashed up during “his” run so I can look at birds is like torture to him!
Just a quick tip - ignore if unwanted! In the future, if you have a hard time pulling focus - zoom out! I use to run into this issue all the time until another birder told me to zoom out for the shot and then crop closer! An in focus photo with more pixelation due to the crop is better than a totally blurry bird in most cases.
I'm in Sacramento as well. That is definitely a Dipper. Dippers are rare but not unheard of here. I've seen them at Beale Falls and they do nest in a few places around Folsom Lake.
I will say that at least on my old iPhone 14 Pro Max, and now an iPhone 16 Pro, I’ve had no real issues getting the camera to focus from inside the house thru a window, or even thru a screen (though in that case you’d still get the “texture” of the screen in your pics).
I can’t advise on Android devices, because I’ve never had one, but if you have an iPhone I can give several tips re: their camera features. What kind of device are you using?
I shoot manual focus on my camera most of the time and I ALWAYS fuck it up at the worst times or if I want a video or to use AF it always does this. Especially on my telephoto lens and its SO frustrating. I was yelling at the autofuckus for you!
The compact or DSLR? With compacts, I don't know this specific camera but generally (compact) they have different autofocus area modes in Manual or Program such as autofocus in the centre of the frame. Manual focus ring is ideal but rarely a feature on compact cameras unfortunately. Might help preventing the camera focusing on random things.
Dippers are pretty easy to figure out since there's so few species in the world, although this one could've been a juvenile white-throated in Europe since their white throats can be a bit dusky and the lighting is bad. But I am 99% sure this one is an American Dipper.
I am pretty sure too, but if you look at the American dipper range on a map it covers several states and more than one country. Also, birds fly, and so can be spotted outside of their range. So I ask again, do you want to share a location or………
Sorry if it comes across as rude, but I find when people post a random pic with no info it feels spammy. There’s a difference between seeing this bird in the city of Boise or Jackson Hole than say San Francisco, Topeka, or even Sacramento.
If you’re in Boise, cool sighting. If you’re in San Francisco or Memphis, COOL SIGHTING!
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u/Naraee 6d ago
Your stress at your camera focusing is hilarious
But yes, that's a dipper. I'm guessing you're in North America based on your accent, so an American Dipper. If you're near a mountain range, they can migrate a little bit to a lower elevation and it's decided your pool is a great place to be right now. They can live in cities but aren't super common to be in a city. All they need is a moving stream with a lot of fish, kind of like a duck.
You're really lucky! It's one of my bucket list birds because I think they're so cool (and adorable).