Been posting quite a number of bird photographs (the flying kind) on some of the Photo/Art sites over the past few days, which brings back even more memories.
Troupial
You might for example find a picture of a Barbet and think, “hey that was years ago when we were in Zambia”. Or a nice photo of a Plumbeous Ibis and it instantly reminds you of the Panatal in South America.
So not only as I was saying in my last post that light, smell and sound can suddenly transport you to another place, but very much more obviously, pictures – even photos of birds can provide the same stimulus.
Red Capped Cardinal
I’ve no idea how many photographs of birds I must have taken over the years, but as an example when we were in Antarctica I took over 4000 pictures in just over 3 weeks (so easy to do with digital cameras) and over 150 of the images were of birds. Penguines, Albatross and Skuas and so on.
So the total must be well into many thousands I suppose, both in film as 35mm and 2½square and as digital – and that’s not including 16 and 8mm old style film plus video over the years. Mind boggling to say the least.
“I remember taking the Red Capped Cardinal a few years ago because of the marvellous pink wall background – which was a village house. I didn’t realise how bright until I was home, but fortunately the bird itself is wonderfully bright so it was complimentary”.
Of course birders or twitchers take many many more than I’ve ever done as I’m interested in all wildlife, not just birdlife.
The biggest headache is of course when you get back home or to your base wherever it is and try and identify the darned things, and it’s a fact that you do end up with an extended library of regional bird books of all sorts.
Campo Flicker
Its’ like topsy – it just grows and grows.
“Who would imagine that a bird called the “Campo Flicker” would one day appear on some old guys web site. But why not? Super colours and nice to see surely”.
The real problem now with the advent of computers and art and photographic forums is that more than ¾ of my bird photos will be in non-digital formats. And I’m not about to dig them out, scan ofr convert them or whatever, now, because the job is just too big.
So the pictures I’ve been posting are relatively recent or certainly since digital cameras became part of my life. Most were taken hand-held, mostly with an IS (image stabilised) telephoto lens or cameraa or very occasionally (when I was a little younger, considerablt more mobile and keen) a tripod.
Certainly gone are the days when armed with the huge gadget bags, tripods, bean bags, that myriad collection of lenses, telephoto, long focus and mirror, light meters and rolls and rolls of film. I would then trudge off to goodness knows where and certainly look far more professional photographer, than tourist.
Here are a few more I found lying around that are maybe out of the ordinary.
The first one here is the Smooth Billed Ani – I mean what a fabulous name and what an astonishing bird. With that extension on the upper top of his bill he looks the business indeed. In flight however he has an erratic path and no one knows the reason for it other than he does.
Smooth billed Ani
Like many tropical or South latitude black birds, he tends to sit in the trees or shrubs very quietly. You can so easily walk past without even knowing he’s there. I don’t know if it’s a trait of black coloured birds in general however as our Blackbirds at home certainly don’t allow that. They usually give a sharp warning cry and they’e off in a huff!
I was also going to post the delightfully named “Mot Mot”, but can’t lay my hands on it at the moment – I can hear it – it sounds like an old UK styled “trimphone – prrr, prrr – prrr, prrr – that’s it……..
But although you can hear it – you can’t see it – isn’t that so often the case!
I have however another picture which I’ll have to show in a later blog. And this is a quite unique bird which is very elusive. And elusive for good reason as it is hunted for large sums of money, but fortunately it doesn’t make it easy for anyone to find.
It has this wonderful habit of sitting for hours and hours at a time in a branch of a medium sized tree. Now you may think, well what’s special about that?
What’s special is that firstly does not move a muscle – at all – for hours on end, and secondly – it looks exactly and I mean exactly like the branch of the tree!
It is called the “Great Potoo” – but for it’s picture – I leave you in anticipation.
