During about two weeks in August (while housebound with my broken ankle) I processed about 130,000 trail-cam images. This involved flicking through the images as fast as possible identifying kākāriki karaka from their leg bands. This information was then used to update the DOC database. I went at my own pace (a rather rapid one) and concentrated on the key data: birds fully identifiable from their leg bands. The database is now up-to-date with information on feeder habits (how often they visit feeders, which feeders, which other birds an individual likes to hang around with etc). And also which birds are considered 'missing'. I ignored what I considered lower-value data (partially identified birds, i.e., where only one colour band was seen) and did not sort images into folders based on content (a folder for images with parakeets, another for images of other species etc). My aim was productivity maximisation: to extract the core data from the images as fast as humanly possible.
While the job was mundane at times, it was also nice to unexpectedly encounter a bird previously considered 'missing', and update the bird's status on the database to 'alive'. There were also some funny or cute photos at times. A few examples below. (Note that some of these photos post-date the post date; I continued processing the feeder-camera images once the backlog had cleared and have posted a few of these photos here for convenience.)
Courtship feeding.
When birds appear on a feeder like this you know they are a pair.
Ice-skating on a frozen water bath.
Looking cute.
A pair of fledglings (left, note the absence of frontal bands) and a pair of juveniles.
Other birds also use the water bath. This includes native ruru, kārearea, kererū, riroriro, kakaruai and warou.
Kārearea (NZ falcon)
A pair of ruru (morepork)
Kererū (NZ pigeon)
