In Praise Of Common Birds
May 4th, 2015
It's a good time of year to appreciate the beauty of common birds at their breeding peak. This mallard was looking particularly gorgeous in the late afternoon light.
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Ring-Billed Gulls are one of those birds where familiarity breeds contempt, and I'm sure most birders seldom bother to train their binoculars on one. They're actually quite striking in breeding plumage. Their gapes and eye rings become such a brilliant shade of orangey-red, it looks fluorescent to me. When a Ring-Billed Gull calls on territory, he's not just declaring himself by sound, he's also flashing that gape the way a Red-Winged Blackbird flashes his epaulets.
1680x1050 wallpaper
Closeup:
May 4th, 2015
It's a good time of year to appreciate the beauty of common birds at their breeding peak. This mallard was looking particularly gorgeous in the late afternoon light.
1680x1050 wallpaper
Ring-Billed Gulls are one of those birds where familiarity breeds contempt, and I'm sure most birders seldom bother to train their binoculars on one. They're actually quite striking in breeding plumage. Their gapes and eye rings become such a brilliant shade of orangey-red, it looks fluorescent to me. When a Ring-Billed Gull calls on territory, he's not just declaring himself by sound, he's also flashing that gape the way a Red-Winged Blackbird flashes his epaulets.
1680x1050 wallpaper
Closeup:
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Mike
May 4th, 2015 at 1:27 pm
Beautiful white bird!
Suzanne
May 4th, 2015 at 6:44 pm
Hey, clueless midwestern dude was right! Seagulls are beautiful if you look at them as if for the first time.
(The story for those who haven't heard it: we were on a kayak tour at Pea Island Wildlife Refuge in Cape Hatteras. Our guide told us about a customer who had pointed up at something and said "oh my god, what's that beautiful white bird?" To which the guide had replied, "dude, that's a seagull.")
mustangsallie
May 5th, 2015 at 11:11 am
Never realized how pretty they are until I saw this close-up.