Because no week is complete without bodacious birds, and because I’ve posted lots of egret and spoonbill photos already, it’s these guys’ turn.
My mother was never impressed with my photos of cormorants. (It was the bird, not the photography that she dissed. Something about “a face only a mother could love.”) I wonder whether she would have liked this anhinga, which can be tricky to distinguish from those pesky cormorants. Especially in the water, where they spend an unnatural amount of time in their own form of physical distancing.
I’d say that this little blue heron had spotted something for lunch, but they always look that intent. They never just chill or look around idly.
And last but hardly least, the glossy ibis.
Nice collection Isabel. And nice angle with the light to show off the glossiness on the glossy ibis
Jim – Thanks. The angle on the ibis was luck – I was hanging out the window on the Merritt Island drive, trying to be quiet and steady. The sun just happened to be in the right spot for me.
Each of these posing birds strikes me as comical.
The feathers on the anhinga look like fur, which in turn makes it appear to be missing parts, such as a chin and fore-paws.
The blue heron’s riveting gaze seems preposterously over-the-top in its flowery bower.
And the glossy ibis, like an ostrich putting its head in the sand, appears to seek invisibility by entering a different plane.
All of which reminds me of the silliness of the temptation to anthropomorphize these fascinating creatures. But my brain persists in doing so. It’s not so far a step to dress them up and invent stories about them as Beatrix Potter did.
Laurna – We can always use some comicality in our lives; maybe never more so than now.