Friday, December 30, 2011

Steepy Mountain Yields

Mountain Bluebirds are one of the most absurdly colored birds on the continent. Males fail to blend in to anything on the ground, and tend to stand out more than any other bird on their often brown and barren-looking wintering grounds. I went out to the Carrizo Plain last week, California's largest intact grassland ecosystem, where hundreds of Mountain Bluebirds were hanging out, blinding anyone who happened to pass by.


This bluebird instinctively knew to pick a weird perch, in order to devalue my photograph. This failed however, since it's still a crippling bird. Uninteresting fact: Ebird's furthest southern records of Mountain Bluebirds are just northwest of Mexico City.


This is the one place male Mountain Bluebirds are camouflaged. It makes sense, considering they spend inordinate amounts of time hovering high in the air.


Here's a female. As with most passerines, she is the modest sex. Fortunately, Economy Of Style is still in this year.


Photogenically speaking, this isn't a very majestic shot...I just think perching birds look really funny when they assume flying-cigar position.


There's cripplers, facemelters, and now...tear-jerkers.


More birds of the "mountain" variety to follow. See you soon!

5 comments:

  1. damn straight! flying cigars will get you every time. (ps, i'll try to stop posting pictures of your weird penis)

    ReplyDelete
  2. la collection est complète, vue de côté, vue de face, de derrière, en plein vol, superbe série pour cet oiseau magnifique !
    et Happy New year!

    ReplyDelete
  3. very gorge. amazing birds. Great shots. =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ Monique - Merci! Je fais ce que je peux.

    @Jill - THANK GOD I thought you would never stop.

    @BB - So gorge!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.