Drat!

Life in Colour: black/grey

Become part of the silence

It’s been a beautiful month of blacks and greys, but how can we already be in the last month of the year? I’m excited to be putting up Christmas decorations and as we have a smallish artificial tree that is decorated mostly with bird ornaments and other nature items, it seems appropriate to end this month’s theme with a bird photo.

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.”
― Robert Lynd

“Birds chirping around you is a beautiful realisation that life is incredibly good. Let this sound be a gentle break in your routine.”
― Hiral Nagda

Life in Colour: black/grey

Red-winged blackbird

It may not have been singing in the dead of night but it certainly had something to say! And these birds can say what they say at the top of their lungs.

Life in Colour: black/grey

Dark

One Word Sunday 10.31.21

Swanning around

Jude’s moved from purple to white as the color of the month, maybe in deference to the white heat of Arizona (106F today). While back in the park during my recent trip to Illinois, I spotted one of a pair of mute swans. My guess is that this is the male and the female is either somewhere sitting on a nest of eggs or hanging out with tiny cygnets. I managed to creep up relatively close to this one by walking along a back path, moving very slowly once I got within sight, and then stay more or less behind some bushes.While beautiful to see, swans are often very aggressive so it’s just as well I wasn’t too close.

for Life in Colour: white

Meet

for One Word Sunday: meet/meat

Point

for One Word Sunday: point

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #142 – You Pick It!

Ann-Christine gives us the choice today to pick what we’d like to share and her beautiful flowers can literally be picked. What do I have here in Arizona? Since our move just over a year ago, other than cacti, I’ve been mostly taking photos of birds, so here are a few recent favorites.

Let’s drop in at the Riparian Preserve and see what we can find. A harrier hawk is always fun.

“He imagines a necessary joy in things that must fly to eat.”
― Wendell Berry

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.”
― Robert Lynd

Then there’s the spoonbill who came during one of the storms in the south and has been here all winter. Here it’s balancing on one leg while looking astonished. Is that like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time? Pretty in pink but what a big mouth!!

may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living ~e. e. cummings

There are lots of spectacular birds but there are also the cute, more approachable ones that you might see in your yard.

Wherever there are birds, there is hope. Mehmet Murat Ildan

If you’re a fish, you’d prefer to see this haughty cormorant perched on a limb rather than in the water where they run silent, run deep, run deadly.

Tomorrow, the birds will sing. Be brave. Face life. ~Charlie Chaplin

A pod of pelicans arrived towards the end of last year and a few have stuck around. I didn’t realize that pairs like this fish and swim in tandem, for all the world like synchronized swimmers. Of course the swimmers don’t usually eat fish while performing, at least I hope not!

And now it’s back to the weekend. I hope you’re enjoying yours.

Backlit

Everything is black and white

Although when in the sleepy pod the first day I saw them these American pelicans looked, with the exception of their exceptional beaks, completely white, on this day they were showing off their underlying black decorative touches.

“Life is better in black and white!”
― Avijeet Das

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!”
― Ted Grant

Does this count for birds, too? Stretch those wings!

“The most colorful thing in the world is black and white, it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all.”
― Vikrmn, 10 Alone

Little photo bombing snowy egret in the background.

Photo bombing again, but in aggressive cormorant black. Doesn’t the middle pelican look as if it has its proverbial hands on proverbial hips in annoyance?

It’s also Pearl Harbor Day here in the U.S. as well as my mom’s and good friend’s birthdays. Can you imagine living in California and having your birthday on Pearl Harbor Day? Not the best birthday my mom ever had!