Saturday, April 10, 2010

Intimate Views

.
At work, I try to remember to take a camera with me whenever I walk from building to building on the campus. I sometimes forget and, inevitably, that is almost guaranteed to be just when some particularly interesting bird or animal turns up.

Yesterday morning, when I had to walk 30-40 yards to another building, I almost didn't bother taking my camera. But I did. And I'm very glad I did!

The first thing that happened was a group of five Cedar Waxwings flew into a small tree as I was passing it. For 2-3 minutes they hopped around so near me that I could literally have reached out and touched them. In fact, I had to step back a couple of paces to get my camera to focus on them.






A few yards further along the path, I had an even more intimate encounter with birds. A female Brown-headed
Cowbird landed in a tree, to be followed a few seconds later by a male.


Then, as I was taking photos of
them, the male leaped onto the female's back, giving me a couple of shots of the birds mating.






Of course, getting photos of birds on the campus isn't always that easy. During my afternoon coffee break, for example, I came across a Yellow-breasted Chat in some undergrowth. For the next several minutes the bird scuffled around making an incredible noise, all within 5-6 feet of where I was standing with my camera at the ready. I never even got a glimpse of the bird, never mind a photo.

.

4 comments:

Jayne said...

Your cedar waxwing photos are stunning! And the ones of the cowbird hanky panky - well, tsk tsk..

Lucky you had your camera with you that day.

Jeff said...

Aren't Waxwings just the most elegant of birds?

Pam said...

The Waxwings really are beautiful birds, they never seem to have a feather out of place!

Jeff said...

They always look wonderfully elegant, Pam, except when it's very windy.