Along Highland Creek

[Shortsighted]

White-winged crossbills have been spotted in the vicinity of Highland Creek in Scarborough (U of T campus) so I thought I would cover a portion of the lower section of the creek without any reasonable hope of running into crossbills and as anticipated, I didn't. No phoebe today, just Ruby-crowned kinglets and thrushes (Hermit, Swainson's and Gray-cheeked). I also captured a thrush that turned out to have a red-brown head that doesn't clearly resemble any thrush, not even a robin. I'm posting that bird separately under ID. Quite a few salmon making their way up the creek without a paddle. Parts of Highland Creek are so shallow that half the salmon is above the water, and I thought that I had it tough.




Ruby-crowned Kinglet


Gray-cheeked thrush



Swainson's thrush

[Napper]

Very nice! Don't think you will receive many responses  to your Dark headed Thrush. Lighting? or Click Bait?

Dunno.
Nothing here, even the Junco's are gone for now. Robins though..

[Shortsighted]

Quite right ... I could have just put the brown-head on this thread instead of redirecting it to the ID section, but that's the sort of thing that university does to you, inclining you to pigeonhole everything in its proper compartment. No more juncos, eh. I had a few of them too, but no more. I didn't even see one along Highland Creek. I didn't see any in the Rouge field that isn't. I don't know where to go anymore. No, that's unprofitable and a waste of time, I've tried it. If I see one more Canada goose I will ignore it with even greater discount.

Now that Ally and Charline have jumped ship (just a swim they said) it's only down to you and me to row the boat. The doc doesn't do manual labour, he just doctors the charts. Which side of the boat do you want to take? Good choice ... my oarlock is crap. OK, where to Captain? Where would Dinu go? Noooo, that's too far! It's my Rotator cuff, you see.

[Charline]

Hey Scopy, great photos but the white balance is strange.


I can't bring myself to tell the forum the kind of trauma that I have gone through recently. It's 100 times or more worse than losing a few charging cables or a SD card or even a GoPro.

[Shortsighted]

The thrushes and kinglet were shot with my camera set at AWB even though for years I just set it at 'cloudy' and left it there, unless I was photographing a scene where I might consider adjusting the white balance to suite the circumstances. To me, subject matter and composition so severely outweighs such trivialities as colour balance or shooting in RAW, especially when I might actually be interested in B&W, or when I only capture the scene as a reminder of the moment and to give me something enjoyable to do. The hassle of processing large complex files, such as RAW, would be worth it if the photo had any more cogent purpose than just having fun. Taking things too seriously by trying to control all variables would take me down a rabbit hole to the depressing realm of frustration. Then I would never be satisfied with any result. Complete control is a fool's game. I tasted it and didn't much like it.
I'm sorry to hear about your trauma. Life is traumatic, emotionally and physically, and some of us get way too much of it. Just thinking about it is giving me a headache.