How to send me wildlife photos

I’m not going to try to put up a “Readers Wildlife” post every morning, as it’s time-consuming and sometimes I don’t get enough contributions. Still, I don’t intend to discontinue the practice, as we have some very good photographers out there, and it’s also a chance to learn some biology.  So I invite readers to send good photos for the “readers’ wildlife section.” Photos aren’t limited to wildlife, but can include travel photos, “street photos” or anything that’s attractive and interesting.

Putting together a “readers’ wildlife” post is much easier if the readers follow certain “submission Roolz”. If you want to send photos, try to adhere to the following protocol. I’m putting these up because I want to have one place where readers can go to see how to send their photos (I will probably make this into a “page” to go in the left sidebar.)

a. Where to send them:  click on “research interests” at the upper right. There you will find my email address, and that’s where you send the photos.

b. Please provide good photos.  If you’ve hung around this site a while, you know that we have some good photographers. I don’t expect professional quality submissions, but the photos should be fairly high quality and high resolution, show some detail of the organims depictd (except for landscapes, of course), and certainly not out of focus. Check what’s been posted in the last month to get an idea.

c. Number of photos: for a single reader’s submission I prefer between 8 and 15 photos. A dozen is a good number. But if you have fewer, that’s okay; even one photo is fine if it’s a good one, for I can save the “small” submissions and later combine photos into multiple-reader posts.

d. Ideally, I’d like for the photos to be attached to the email (max 20Gb per email, but you can send two or so). To make sure I don’t screw up the posting, try to give each photo a number and match that with its description in the text.  PLEASE do not sent photos as a website link from which I have to download each picture separately, as that takes a lot of time.

e. With the photos, please send a Word document (if possible—otherwise just put the text in the email), including a brief introduction (where the photos were taken, when, etc.) and then a list of captions number with the name of the species or item. For example:

    1.)  This feisty raccoon (Procyon lotor) was photographed chowing down on blackberries.

     2.) The same day, a female kestrel American kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) was having its own lunch: a recently-caught house sparrow. (Passer domesticus).

Then I would put photo #1 under the #1 description, and so on. The already-posted examples will show you how I do it.  If you want to provide links for the animals, by all means feel free; I usually add links if the photographer doesn’t.

Note that in the description above, each species is identified by both its common name and its Latin binomial. If you don’t know either, that’s okay, just give the genus if you know it, or say that the species is unknown. But if you know the common name, pleasse look up the Latin binomial as well (and don’t forget the italics!).

f. Finally, if you want to throw in a small amount of extra text, say a description of your camera equipment or methods, that’s fine. Readers often enjoy reading about those things.

Example:  The harbor was full of Patagonian crested ducks (Lophonetta specularioides specularioides)), whose red eyes look almost Satanic:

As of next Friday, I will be gone for two weeks, so hold onto your photos until early May.

Thanks!