A good lesson in not making assumptions!!

I felt that the chicks were one and the same. My supposed evidence was the grain of sand in the same spot on the bill, and the same smudge/weepy bit beside the eye (I was not put off by the changed spot pattern only because I hadn’t noticed). I knew one head had more sand on it, but instead of leaving that as a fact, I tried to work out HOW this could happen. I didn’t have any evidence of any other part of the chicks being the same, but I then used my imagination and jumped to the conclusion that it was a composite of the same chick from two different photos in two different positions because of the extra sand on the head of the chick on the right. The alternate and correct option was that the sand had been cleaned off one head. I also missed the other cues such as the chick’s expression being exactly the same on both chick heads.

Its good for us to be able to separate out facts from speculation and clearly convey this to others, a helpful skill not only in identifying image changes but also in other parts of life like if we were called to give evidence of a crime etc.

Yes a composite, but I am still confused by what you wrote :). See Sunday morning’s blog post…. artie