Category Archives: Bird

Bird

Great Blue Heron

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Great Blue Heron_3

“Bokeh” comes from the Japanese word ボケ meaning “blur” or “haze” and refers to the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus parts of a photograph. Bokeh is determined both by the type of aperture in a lens (number and shape of blades) and by the optical quality of the lenses in use. Some lenses allow you greater control over this aspect of photography by using multiple apertures in a single optical pathway. Those people using third party lenses on modern mirrorless cameras can purchase additional aperture modules to place between the lens and the camera body to reproduce this control, while almost all lenses can use a shaped blackout filter on the front lens element to control the overall shape of the bokeh artifacts.

However, heron don’t care about any of this. Heron just wants a fish.

Bird

Heron

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Heron_84

Once upon a time, a fish got tired of being wet and crawled onto land. The children of this fish stayed on land, their children grew better legs, learning to build nests on land, their children losing their scales. As more time went by, they spread over the land, separating into groups, some moving to two legs, some of those growing feathers, some of those moving their nests to the trees to keep them safer. Eventually, some of these – to the best of their ability – returned to the inland seas to dine upon the offspring of their distant ancestors.

There are more efficient ways to eat a fish, is all I’m saying.

Bird

Goose

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Geese_7

The left wing isn’t unified, rife with contrasting opinions and textured nuance covering the entire span from the center to the far fringes. Yes, there is some darkness, but if you look, you can find some light.

Bird

Javan Pond Heron

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Javan Pond Heron_1

One interesting thing about visiting zoos is that you get a really skewed view of what species are and are not rare.

Take the amur tiger, for example. I see *lots* of them. I also see a great many amur leopards, bali mynahs, rhinocerosauruses, elephants, lemurs, and macaws. This is because they’re in breeding programs to help their respective species survive.

Little critters like this Javan pond heron are quite common in their native range … but I don’t live there and most zoos don’t care for them because they’re not rare enough. At the Baton Rouge Zoo, though, this was the only species I’d never seen before. So it was rare for me.

Bird

Eagle

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Bald Eagle_8

___How eagles respond to concerns___

Concern: “I’m worried that something bad is going to happen to me.”
Concern: “Can you do this one little thing to make sure it doesn’t?”
Eagle: “Bad things happen all the time.”

Concern: “OK, I’m worried that this specific thing is going to happen to me.”
Eagle: “It’s not going to happen.”

Concern: “Well, but it did happen in that country all the way over here.”
Eagle: “Sure, but it can’t happen here.”

Concern: “But it did happen here too, elsewhere in the country sure, but it happened.”
Eagle: “That was several states away. That wasn’t, like, ‘here’ here.”

Concern: “What about that time it happened right in this city, several years ago?”
Eagle: “That was when we were kids, that didn’t count.”

…time passes..

Concern: “So, that bad thing I was worried about that you said couldn’t happen here, happened last night.”
Eagle: “We need to wait until all the data is in. There’s no reason to be concerned yet.”

Concern: “I was there. The specific bad thing happened to me last night.”
Eagle: “Well, okay, maybe. I’d still like to see proof.”

Concern: “HERE ARE PHOTOGRAPHS, VIDEOS, RECORDED TESTIMONY. LOOK AT MY BRUISES AND SCRATCHES. SEE MY CAST?”
Concern: “SEE THIS LIST OF THE INJURED AND DEAD? IF YOU HAD JUST DONE THAT ONE LITTLE THING, THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED!!!”
Eagle: “… it didn’t happen to me.”

Bird

Barn Owl

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Barn Owl_5

A key skill to being an avian consultant is to be able to hear things like …

– We want to outsource our nest building, but need to maintain strict quality controls in all aspects of design, material selection, and placement, while also gaining new features like automated egg rotation meeting our species’ ideal, two bathrooms, and a walk in closet.

– Yes, my plumage is old and I really should have molted a few years ago, but I’m just really busy, you know. I was thinking that, since growing new feathers takes so long, that maybe I just spruce myself up with a bit of paint. What do you think?

– I have this awesome entrepreneurial idea! Just in time on-demand prime worm delivery for all the birds that don’t want to be early! Can you put together a business plan, risk analysis, vendor sourcing review, ROI calculation, and marketing plan? I’ll be able to pay you next year once the business is successful.

… and still make this face.