Saturday, July 19, 2014

Horse feathers

Today my photo finds ended up reminding me of a Marx Brothers movie. It began with some horses. They may not seem very challenging to shoot when they're grazing, but...


...they were far away...


...this far away:


See them back near the tree line, in the light patch of hay, and to the right of that even further back in the grass? No, they're not really visible here, though in the high res original you can clearly see that they are horses. It required a long telephoto and heavy cropping to get the two images above.

Returning from my excursion to look for horses, I found an invasion of Common Grackles. I love catching the different iridescent colors as they shift in the light, mostly purple and blue in this case. I also saw one, probably immature, that was almost entirely bronze-black, without the iridescent hues.


We interrupt this feathered procession to bring you a squirrel interloper.


I managed an unobstructed shot through the tree canopy.


By far most of the action was on the ground. It's fun to try to catalog the many typical bird postures.






Young one on the left:


Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/horse-feathers.html

4 comments:

  1. Darwin and Huxley would be pleased with these photos! Enjoyed your story telling (squirrel!) Almost as much (or more) than your photos, thanks!

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    1. Darwin and Huxley - I'll assume the great naturalists rather than the fictional colleges in "Horse Feathers", so I'll take that as a compliment! Thanks!

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  2. The SO recognizable Grackles made me smile, and the depth of field control was superb.

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    1. Thank you! Sometimes it pays to pay attention to the "common" creatures who are often overlooked in the hunt for harder-to-find varieties.

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