[Buckeyemikie]

If I ever get to the point where I feel the need to consult Instagram for my photographic direction, just shoot me...

Ditto😀

[normhead]

What I've noticed on Instagram is the "likes" really have less to do with quality of the photo and more about the poster's number of followers, not just birds but anything. I have some photos on Instagram, I post once in a while, without looking hard my most liked bird photo was red-bellied woodpecker. For kicks I looked up my "most liked" Flickr bird photos, and none of the top five or six were particularly good, but they were explored (no bluebirds by the way, closest was a blue-gray gnatcatcher)! Plus I think the pose of the bird, the detail in the photo, lot of things are as important as the color. Most of those Instagram likers are probably not even bird enthusiasts, and don't know a warbler from a crow.

Are you sure the same doesn't happen here? I'm not.

[Digitalis]

Interesting, I recently published this photo on my public Instagram:


Pentax K5IIs - Sigma 100-300mm f/4 APO EX DG.

Blue bird: check. Contrasting background material: check. And this image only garnered a few likes. Though to be fair I have only had a public Instagram for a just over a year now - I have a private insta with my studio colleagues where we share studio disaster stories, industry news and word salad briefs we get sent from clueless advertising execs.

[swanlefitte]

Interesting, I recently published this photo on my public Instagram:


Pentax K5IIs - Sigma 100-300mm f/4 APO EX DG.

Blue bird: check. Contrasting background material: check. And this image only garnered a few likes. .

So you do not have between 10,000 and 500,000 followers. I assume almost all in that category have a large number of bots. Maybe the study only tells us what bots prefer?

[ramseybuckeye]

I believe the study adjusted for that. "The score normalizes absolute numbers of Likes for time and reach, that is, for how many people have presumably seen an image (ranging from 10,000 to 500,000 viewers per image for the accounts investigated in this study)."

Truthfully I didn't readthe study that closely, it was kind of boring.

It's a study of humans, not a study of birds. Unfortunately, social media likes do seem to influence what people photograph - perhaps that will feed through to bird photography, as it does to every other type of photography. One year everyone wants a selfie in a field of sunflowers, the next they all want a photograph of a frogmouth. Which is bad news for frogmouths, but good news for oystercatchers and others that aren't on the fashion charts.

It's worth being aware of these unconscious biases, if only so we don't succumb to them, either when we like others' photos or take our own.

Most genuine birders are drawn to rarity and to birds with distinctive behaviour or striking characteristics, but even that is a bias of its own.

How true, and I like shooting oystercatchers, I don't see them often.

Are you sure the same doesn't happen here? I'm not.

I'm sure it does

Interesting, I recently published this photo on my public Instagram:


Pentax K5IIs - Sigma 100-300mm f/4 APO EX DG.

Blue bird: check. Contrasting background material: check. And this image only garnered a few likes. Though to be fair I have only had a public Instagram for a just over a year now - I have a private insta with my studio colleagues where we share studio disaster stories, industry news and word salad briefs we get sent from clueless advertising execs.

Great photo, I like the pose of the bird and your composition.

[MikeStnly]

You can wait a long time before a Blue Bird turns up in my woods or my yards, and I can't find a site that rents trained ones..

I have been in Carnarvon for 8-9 years now and only once did I see an Indigo Bunting. The only blue bird I have seen in our neck of the woods. The Eastern Bluebird breeds in our area but favours fields and open woods. Both in short supply near me. :-(

[MikeStnly]

What I've noticed on Instagram is the "likes" really have less to do with quality of the photo and more about the poster's number of followers, not just birds but anything.

I did an experiment the last time I used Flickr. For everyone who faved one of my photos, I faved three of theirs. For everyone who commented on one of my photos, I commented on three of theirs. My faves and comments ballooned. So, I agree, it has less to do with the quality of the photo and more about "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours".

[normhead]

The only blue birds I ever see are Blue Jays. Today, Blue Jays were all I saw close enough to th camera to get images. There were lots of Evening Grosbeaks to far away to get decent images.

You can see the forest reflected in his eye.

[Digitalis]

I assume almost all in that category have a large number of bots. Maybe the study only tells us what bots prefer?

That is a variable that can be very difficult to quantify in any study on social media, and a variable that (in my opinion) makes any attempt to study the nature of online interactions and audience engagement rather speculative. Unless someone roots through 50,000+ profiles and verifies each one as belonging to an actual corporeal being THEN the science can be justifiably counted on.

I agree, it has less to do with the quality of the photo and more about "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours".

So social media is er, social...who'd a thunk it? One thing Instagram has brought us are social media influencers - my studio photographer colleagues and I have had pretty bad experiences with them in general as they are often entitled snots that operate on an rather skewed transactional basis that profoundly favors them.

[jacamar]

The more time you spend with this, the more compicated it gets. If I see a good owl or hawk shot, I start to wonder if it was taken at a zoo, or whether the photographer was part of a mob, chasing the bird from one tree to another. If I see a good shot of, say, a Cerulean Warbler I would place a lot of value on that because I know they are declining in North America and they are really hard to shoot when they spend so much time flitting around high in the trees. When I see pics of fairy wrens and pardelotes I can see that they are beautiful but I have no idea how difficult they are to find or to photograph. There's also the emotional attachment - birds we grew up with or have been trying to track down for a long time. There's a lot more to it than colour!

[swanlefitte]

The more time you spend with this, the more compicated it gets. If I see a good owl or hawk shot,

So true and it goes the other way. Just yesterday I got some good Cooper's hawk shots. I used to be over the moon if I was able to get one. Now I have learned where, and when I can find them, and how to approach them. Now my shot is just another adolescent male. A shot has to show something I haven't seen or be extremely detailed, which also shows something, I haven't seen. Now a Kestral on the other hand, I have seen only twice and never photographed one yet. Those photos spark my interest.

My photos here for reference and I wish I knew a way to resize a flickr photo to a smaller size to not be as intrusive in the thread. (Is there a way to attach a flickr photo at smaller sizes?) edit: Found


Here are 2. One was 11 days ago and the other was in oct. 2 years ago the bottom shot was amazing. I still like the shot but not for the hawk. The shots on my camera will be stored on a hard drive and probably never looked at again.






EDIT: just checked out my new images. It turns out it is my first Sharp Shinned Hawk and not another Cooper's Hawk. The photo is suddenly exciting to me.

[bertwert]

My photos here for reference and I wish I knew a way to resize a flickr photo to a smaller size to not be as intrusive in the thread. (Is there a way to attach a flickr photo at smaller sizes?)

When you share using flickr BBCode, there's a drop down menu to change the image size:

[swanlefitte]

When you share using flickr BBCode, there's a drop down menu to change the image size:

thank you for that.

[MikeStnly]

So true and it goes the other way. Just yesterday I got some good Cooper's hawk shots. I used to be over the moon if I was able to get one. Now I have learned where, and when I can find them, and how to approach them. Now my shot is just another adolescent male. A shot has to show something I haven't seen or be extremely detailed, which also shows something, I haven't seen.

That happens to us all, I have a Barred Owl that frequents the tree by my back deck. It went from exciting to normal. He is here again today for the 5th or 6th time this week. But then you get shots like this one where he lands in the snow and catches a mouse.



Or this where he is about to eat one.



It keeps you watching every time he comes around, just in case. To me, your shots are great, because I don't have any good hawk shots yet.

[normhead]

I once saw a Blue Jay get a mouse, and I saw a Shrike almost disappear down a mouse hole and pull one out. I didn't get any pictures.