Turns out you can use the same technique for bats in mid-flight to get penguins in mid-swim.
Category Archives: Bird
Cardinal
I’ve been told that, have you colour vision, this photo is rather striking.
Pelican
You know how dinosaurs in movies are green and scaley?
Yeah. That’s probably wrong.
Grackle
The birds are less impressed when the bed knob makes everything fly because they can do that on their own.
Ostrich (Struthio camelus)
Ostriches, for some reason, are unable to fly.
Flamingo
It turns out that Missouri is rather quite humid and, when it rains, the front of the lens can get covered in tiny little water droplets. This is roughly equivalent to a fog filter which I never had until I took this shot and decided that I quite liked the effect. I haven’t taken the time to really experiment with it yet though.
Duck
Last year, I took a trip to Missouri for work. As always, I went to the St. Louis Zoo because it’s a pretty awesome zoo. What I did not anticipate was that 1) the zoo would close early … at noon … to prepare for a big event and 2) that it would be pouring rain. Now, I was prepared for the rain because I always keep a camera raincoat in my bag, so my camera was kept nice and dry. Camera rain coats work by using an extremely tight weave of ripstop nylon that is treated with a water repellent.
Ducks stay dry by using an extremely tight layering of feathers coated with a thin layer of oil that serves as a water repellent.
Humans stay dry by having the good sense not to go out in the rain.
I got thoroughly soaked and it took me a good two hours for my clothes to dry out.
Peacock
Peacocks know when you’ve gotten bored at the zoo and equipped your fancyass art lens. That’s when they start posing.
Green Araçari (Pteroglossus viridis)
This is a green araçari. This is not, as most of the zoo signs say, a green “aracari”. I mean, completely ignoring the fact that of all the colours this bird is, green isn’t one of them, “araçari” vs “aracari” matters because one way is correct and the other one makes you sound like a biologically and linguistically uneducated idiot … which is fair if it’s true, but not at all fair because some sign designer somewhere couldn’t be bothered to use the damn character map tool. It’s right there in operating system, people! I’m not asking people to memorize unicode character sequences here. Just know how to pronounce the words before you put them on the sign.
Sheesh.
Northern Ground Hornbill (Bucorvus abyssinicus)
Those stupid picnic group party games that you are pushed into through peer pressure aren’t limited to humans.
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)
The goose paths are well established in the abandoned/unused enclosures at the zoo.
Inca Tern (Larosterna inca)
Sometimes a shadow doesn’t match its source very well.
Chestnut-backed Thrush (Zoothera dohertyi)
Once upon a time, I thought I knew how balance worked.
Canada Goose
Most raindrops are of some interest, but this particular one is fascinating.
Blue-breasted Kingfisher (Halcyon malimbica)
He’s not just the owner of Beakclub for Birds, he’s also a client.
Flamingo 2
A nearby explosion shuddered the trees and she dove for cover and turned off her gear. Seconds later, leaves and twigs fell like shrapnel as the triad hunting her scampered amongst the branches. They’d been seeking her for weeks but she was getting even better at hiding than she had in the city, but then she’d had to learn. The triads were crafty. They were fast. They were nimble.
They could out-run her, out-climb her, and out-swim her. If she didn’t find a way to get some sleep and a decent meal, they’d be out-thinking her and then it would all be over. So there she hung, in the tree, doing her counts as the triad moved past. She had the count down. She’d seen four claws, three horns, two tails, then counted out one full minute. The pattern held and she sensed she was safe enough. She slithered out of the hollow tree to join him.
They’d been connected by the deepest magic and so he was strongest at the turning points. Midnight, of course, and both dusk – from the instant when the sun touched the earth to when it vanished from sight entirely – to dawn, when it reversed. Everyone knew these turning points, but he was teaching her that magic was point of view and she was learning how to see.
There was magic in the moment between when the frog leapt when its trailing foot disappeared beneath the ripples, the entire world holding its breath. There was magic in the moment between the gust of wind and when the dandelion gave up its courage, letting seeds fly. London was still a long way off, but she hoped there would be magic in the city still … maybe in the moment between when the fog blurred the lampposts and the moment they disappeared. Maybe she could do something with that brief moment of imbalance when her shoe miscaught a cobble and she weren’t entire sure that she weren’t going to fall. If it hadn’t been destroyed in The Flash, she had hopes to find power in the chimes of Big Ben. However, until she got there, she’d never know. She laughed a little as she thought about yesterday’s test, confirming that one of the longest turnings was starting. It made perfect sense, after all. The sun always seemed to hang there forever, but no one ever spoke of the magic of noon.
She joined her friend, her secret weapon, in the clearing.
He was many things to her – a friend when she needed one, her only confidant, a mentor, a child, and during those few moments when her fear dropped away, a playmate. They’d been practicing though in a few minutes he’d be more. He’d have to be if they were going to escape the seekings … even if just for a little while. Tonight, he would become her steed.
He was waiting for her.
She stood beside him and they watched the shadows. Then, as expected, the sun stalled, and Alice rode her flamingo up and out of the triad’s hunting grounds.
Kagu (Rhynochetos jubatus)
This is the kagu, an endangered bird from New Caledonia. It is apparently the only bird to develop “nasal corns”, or those things on its beat that cover the nostrils. Wikipedia is careful to specify “only bird”, which means that I am now envisioning fish and mastadons with nasal corns.
Great Argus (Argusianus argus)
This is the great argus. You may wonder why there is no lesser argus.
Hermes slew it on Zeus’s order.
The ancient Greeks screwed up all of our taxonomy. That’s why we had to fix it with Latin.
Secretary Bird (Sagittarius serpentarius)
The secretary bird is named because it has dark feathers sticking out from the back of its head and looks like the pens that secretaries put back there as seen here:
Ash Carter – Secretary of Defense
John Kerry – Secretary of State
Jacob Lew – Secretary of the Treasury
The similarity is truly stunning.
American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber)
After hours a’ caucusing, the group determined …
Sometimes, people are going to have sex
Sometimes, people are going to have babies
Sometimes, people are going to be mean
Sometimes, people are going to be greedy
Sometimes, people are going to be lazy
Sometimes, people are going to die
The platform of the Birds of a Feather party, therefore, is that after thousands of years of recorded history, people are unlikely to change, so any political plans that assume otherwise are unlikely to work and should be avoided. The birds are confused at why the humans seem focused on prevention of the impossible instead of the amelioration of likely consequence … but what do they know? They’re only birds.