Did anyone else notice the bird songs/calls in the background during the Masters this past week? Along with a Carolina Wren and Red-bellied Woodpecker that I heard, there was a Northern Cardinal singing loud and clear throughout much of the entire five hour broadcast yesterday. I even turned my Merlin App on for a few minutes at one point to see if it picked up any other birds. No, but the NC kept registering over and over. I suppose that if one wanted, they could post a recording to make an observation at that location date and time.
I bet there were some eagles and other birdies also during that tournament.
Also: each of the 18 holes is named for a plant, native or not, so you could botanize this course as well.
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Neat details! But I don’t think it would be best to make observations for these. It seems similar to posting observations from webcams/livestreams that the observer doesn’t own, which staff have said shouldn’t be done (this could especially be an issue with copyrighted livestreams, which I am sure that the Masters is).
See this previous post of mine:
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Welcome to tournament golf! You must be new to it because those birds have been the main background for many seasons!
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That would be the only reason I’d watch golf on TV is for the local fauna. I recall the roar of the cicadas during the big emergence that coincided with a tournament a few years ago
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I wasn’t aware that the famous fly and spider made it to iNat. I agree with the idea that images of fauna/flora obtained through media that don’t belong to the observer should not be posted as records, in part for copyright reasons. But it is an interesting distinction. My camera traps take pics of animals that I never saw in real life, but I own (or rather have permission to use) that equipment. So those are permissible as observations.
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Yeah, I’d say the main two differences (from the iNat perspective) are:
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you setting up and collecting camera trap data is a personal and intentional interaction with nature.
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you own the rights to the images taken by your camera trap.
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I had the same experience and noticed the (almost annoying) Northern Cardinal singing, probably very close to the announcers tower, wherever that was. I was watching the tournament on my laptop from my home office and at one point, a curious male Cardinal landed right outside the adjacent window and kept peering into my office. I turned the sound down on the laptop in order to let my local Cardinal win a “territorial battle”! There were also American Robins at Augusta in the background, and the CBS broadcast also highlighted an Eastern Bluebird sitting on one of the pinflags at one point–which the announcer correctly identified to species!
The Florida swing of the PGA tour is famous for presenting egrets, cormorants, anhingas, ospreys, and the occasional eagle. The desert Southwest tournaments (e.g. Phoenix Open) usually have either a Canyon Wren or Pyrrhuloxia now and then. I’ve had birding friends who keep “Life Lists” of birds heard during sporting events, birds heard on Hollywood movies (often misplaced to the wrong continent), etc. If you’re a lister, it’s hard to resist!
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I still remember the Sora rail that landed on the field during a Monday night NFL game. Someone informed the announcers of the species. I think that was my first sora record. ;-)