MTem
Well-known member
Yes if just taking a photo and making no effort to id at the time (taking notes, comparing size, shape, sound, behaviour etc) then yes, I think that's a bit lazy.
However, if you do as much as you can at the time and are able to take a photo, and have an idea of the species but want confirmation, then feedback from more experienced birders will help you for the next time.
Even for the more experienced this is useful for say gulls, or subspecies of wagtail or recent splits of stonechat etc
In both cases above the threads provide thought provoking discussion.
On this (off topic) subject I would add the value and importance of photographs has for me personally increased as two trends have come into my birding (been at it from under 10 to now over-60)..... namely improving digital optical equipment (and more money to buy it!), and deteriorating eyesight, and with the latter seemingly a decreasing ability to be really sure of features on a flying or rapidly moving bird.
I have been fortunate to have excellent eyesight for most of my life, and I am not bad at art/drawing so in my early years I did not find it difficult, even with glimpsed views or flying birds, to assess features and remember them clearly enough to record them. Now I need glasses to read, and although my eyes are still good by any standard, I find a few photographs that I can study at leisure are wonderful for confirming what I thought I saw in the field ..... and occasionally undermining it as well!
The photos are also by far the best way to record colour-rings.
I await with some trepidation the next trend - an inability to carry all this cr*p around with me ....:-C
Mick