This goes back a ways to February of 2013. As we straggled along in the mid-day Caribbean heat, I spotted something in a tree. I couldn’t get close enough to see what it was, and the bright sunlight made my viewfinder less than useful, but I took a photo. Looking at it later, I found I had a new bird. Gotta go with your gut, sometimes. Of course, I’d like better resolution on the feathers, but maybe that’s a reason to go back . . .
I figure I might sit this still and look this spooked if my nest were in a bed of thorns.
The juxtaposition of delicate pink beak, piercing thorn, and ringed eye rivet the attention exactly where the golden mean of vertical and horizontal lines intersect. How a creature that needs wing space could navigate in and out of this protective lair is beyond imagination. Another prize-winner, Isabel.
Laurna – Maybe it crawled in? 😀 Or grew in place? I agree – hard to imagine.
I am am continually amazed at the ability of birds, not only to navigate three-dimensionally, but also to calculate somehow how much a twig will bend when they land on it, and compensate accordingly. I’m particularly amazed by the BIG birds — eagle, great horned owl, etc. — who have a wingspan of up to six feet, to navigate flawlessly through a tangle of forest branches.
Jim T
Jim T – An excellent point. I remember our bird-walk leader in Arizona talking about how light many of the small birds are – a few ounces, in some cases, which makes the landings (even on a cactus) less fraught. But bald eagles apparently weigh between 3 and 6 kg – which is a not insignificant weight to land on a branch, with some forward force as well. The simple (and simply unhelpful answer) to how they do it is that the ones that couldn’t do it well enough all died off. But that doesn’t really answer the “how.” Of course, how did Gretzky know where the puck would be?