Real Birds Don’t Come from Prompts

I’ll be honest — I’ve been feeling a bit uneasy lately.

With AI image generation evolving at breakneck speed, it’s now possible to create incredibly realistic “photographs” of birds, landscapes, or just about anything else without ever stepping outside. Just type in a prompt, hit enter, and boom: a majestic owl in golden hour light, perfectly framed, eyes sharp as razors — all without mud on your boots or a mosquito bite in sight.

It’s impressive. It’s also a little terrifying.

Because I’ve spent my time waking up before sunrise, waiting in bogs, freezing my fingers, missing shots, getting lucky, getting unlucky, learning and re-learning. And suddenly, here’s a technology that can fabricate a version of what I do in seconds.

But here’s the thing: it’s not real. It’s not out there listening to the cuckoo call in the fog or waiting for the moment a tern dives. It doesn’t know what it feels like to hear silence break into birdsong, or to have a common crane suddenly land closer than you dared hope.

That’s why I keep going. Why I fight back, camera in hand. Every image I take is something only I could’ve captured, in that light, at that second, in that place. It's not a replication — it's a record.

And behind each photo, there’s a story. Not just a caption or a species name, but a real, messy, human story: the struggle, the timing, the unexpected twist. You can’t prompt that. You have to live it.

That said, I’m not turning my back on AI entirely. It’s also become a helpful partner — a tireless research assistant, a creative sounding board, and yes, even a writing companion for this very blog. It brings a lot to the table, but it can’t walk beside a lake at dawn or carry a thermos of coffee into the forest.

So I’ll keep clicking the shutter — mud, cold, and all — and share the world as I see it. The real one.