(no subject)

I've been having some luck with BirdNET as a birdsong identification app on my phone. It relies on two things that may be an issue for people, though. The most notable is that when you start recording sound, it puts a graphic rendition of the frequencies that the phone is picking up on the screen. When you have the birdsong you want, you stop recording, then select the section of screen that contains the visual representation of the sound you're interested in. Not a great app for the visually impaired, and something of an issue for folks with fine motor control issues, although I suppose that's going to be the case for a lot of smartphone apps.

The other is that it relies on contacting database servers to assess the submitted portion of sound against databases of birdsong possible for your area. If you don't have an active internet connection you're not getting an answer any time soon.

That being said, it will tell you how sure it is about what you've selected, including offering 'wild guesses' if it really can't assess some sound you've submitted. And if it recognizes the sound you've selected as being machine-made or the sound of speech, the species identification will come back 'Human'.

(Meanwhile, I have to say I appreciate the photo identification option on the Merlin app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Just make sure that if you use this app, you rotate the photo you took of the bird so that it's properly oriented if you don't want it to think the black-throated blue warbler you spotted in the bushes behind you is a nuthatch or something.)

Jewelry work 1

( Two pieces here, but there are three pictures of piece #2. )

Jewelry work 2

( One piece, multiple pictures, rather more fancy. )

I did this one almost entirely because I'd bought those turquoise and bronzite dangles thinking they looked awesome and I wanted to work with them. turquoise practically cries out for silver, unless you plan on pulling out all the stops and going gold or bronze to a degree I didn't think I wanted to do. The round beads are dyed magnesite. The central stone is bronzite. The beads on either side of the central stone are crystal, but the slightly larger red beads in the lower arc are garnet, as are the red beads in the dangles (although the ones in the dangles are dyed to make sure they have even, saturated color, because like many stones garnet comes in grades from 'no srsly this is a gemstone, honest, we swear' to 'OMG CALL THE AUCTIONHOUSE', and I do not have the money for the good end of that spectrum). The wire is sterling silver fill, which is ten percent silver and the rest is copper; it lasts way longer than silver plated. This whole thing was done as a gift for an old friend from high school, who I haven't been able to meet up with in a while. I kind of owe her something like two or three special occasion gifts, so I confirmed that she likes turquoise as a color and used her as an excuse to do something with those dangles.