Flaushi & Friends (Mostly Off)
DB the Dreamboat Robin - Please zoom in ;-)
My Getty Images Portfolio and Flickr Getty Album
The above image is meant for the ever so talented and most wonderful GrahamParryWildlife. Graham has a knack for finding the rarest of bird visitors to the UK and it is always fascinating to learn more about these beautiful vagrants via his beautiul stream.
Oh, my dear friend Carole from Barry & Carole Bowden
nicknamed the above cutie "a little dreamboat" when I first uploaded another portrait of him a good year ago. Hence, my caption plus I decided to start calling him DB for short. Not to be confused with the character of DB, the lead CSI Ted Danson portrayed on the long-running hit TV series CSI: Vegas!
The day this image was taken in January 2017, I was running late while walking briskly to the bus stop as I had tried to stop my resident Great Tit Ziggy from chasing away the lovely Long-Tailed Tit couple. Lily and her hubby had decided to hang out on my terrace every day for two weeks at the time.
Normally, they tried stopping by when Ziggy was not around or had already retired to his ultimate man cave aka the nest box at dusk. Ziggy really messed up some great photo ops that day ;-)
Anyway, so there I was dashing off and griping about how the light was now perfect but I couldn't take any pictures as I had some fun doctor's appointments pending on the other side of town.
My junior resident Robin Angelo was gleefully waving goodbye to me as he thus would not be obligated to do any posing sessions for me that day. Though that reminds me that I have plenty of gorgeous shots of Angelo from last winter which I have yet to upload on here as he turned into one amazing model as well.
As I turned into the next corner from my street, I suddenly heard a very loud warning call from a Robin, right in my ear. So, I stopped and spun around only to lock eyes with an incredible cutie at eye level and less than one foot from me.
The unusual thing is that once I stopped and turned around, he seemed mighty pleased that his call to attention had worked and he stopped chirping. He even stopping bowing. Instead, he fluffed himself up and then proceeded to model for me like the ultimate top model. Right away, I gently asked him if I could take his picture as he was just so adorable and fluffy.
Now how do I know this was a male Robin? I just knew. It has to do with the energy of how the male birds look at me versus how the female ones do. Hard to explain. So far, I have been right 95% of the time. The females who have already had kids look at me with motherly affection and the younger ones with adoring affection (for their foster mom: me) whilst the male birds will either flirt with me or look at me with a very probing or even sometimes skeptical glance. DB did a real soul-searching number on me ;-)
Mind you, this was not one of my resident Robins nor visiting ones nor even the neighborhood sweetie from a few months earlier in the fall of 2016 as she lives around a garden hedge about 10 minutes from me in the opposite direction.
Well, this cutie not only let me take a slew of images of him, but he totally helped me out. I even was able to move around directly in front of him as my camera was only focusing on the dead leaves at first. I zoomed in, I zoomed out.
He was the ultimate posing pro and I have a good 100+ images of him that are mostly spot on. I tried out various angles and he even let me walk around him. Then I wanted to just hang out with him and thank him as he was so sweet and I basically was only looking into my camera instead of at him. I also figured I could maybe try out some super close-up portraits of just his head.
Well, a bicyclist with a really big black dog (on a leash) drove and ran by across from us so the darling hopped away into the cover of another hedge. But, we spent quite a few minutes together and it was all so magical. He most definitely is another little Buddha Angel.
I think this "dreamboat" may be one of my late resident senior Robin St. Rudy's sons from the summer of 2016 - just a feeling because he acted exactly like the Rudy Junior who came to my terrace that August and of whom I took a picture. Plus, the garden he is at home in (another small building complex) is not that far from mine as it starts at the end of my block and is thus partially across the same street (mine is in the middle), though with a few posh villas thrown in between for good measure.
Throughout 2016, I dreamed of getting some really nice close-up shots of a sweet Robin with great feather detail in a winterly hedge. Well, my wish was more than granted quite unexpectedly. It always happens when you least expect it ;-)
The best thing was that I kept running into DB each time I would walk to that bus stop over the course of the next few months after the above session. As a result, I have numerous cute shots of him, albeit more distant ones as each time another human being ended up walking by and messing up our bonding sessions. One girl even stopped and started talking to me while I was clearly focused on DB with my camera... But, I am most grateful for the initial magical session we had together a good year ago ;-)
DB the Dreamboat Robin - Please zoom in ;-)
My Getty Images Portfolio and Flickr Getty Album
The above image is meant for the ever so talented and most wonderful GrahamParryWildlife. Graham has a knack for finding the rarest of bird visitors to the UK and it is always fascinating to learn more about these beautiful vagrants via his beautiul stream.
Oh, my dear friend Carole from Barry & Carole Bowden
nicknamed the above cutie "a little dreamboat" when I first uploaded another portrait of him a good year ago. Hence, my caption plus I decided to start calling him DB for short. Not to be confused with the character of DB, the lead CSI Ted Danson portrayed on the long-running hit TV series CSI: Vegas!
The day this image was taken in January 2017, I was running late while walking briskly to the bus stop as I had tried to stop my resident Great Tit Ziggy from chasing away the lovely Long-Tailed Tit couple. Lily and her hubby had decided to hang out on my terrace every day for two weeks at the time.
Normally, they tried stopping by when Ziggy was not around or had already retired to his ultimate man cave aka the nest box at dusk. Ziggy really messed up some great photo ops that day ;-)
Anyway, so there I was dashing off and griping about how the light was now perfect but I couldn't take any pictures as I had some fun doctor's appointments pending on the other side of town.
My junior resident Robin Angelo was gleefully waving goodbye to me as he thus would not be obligated to do any posing sessions for me that day. Though that reminds me that I have plenty of gorgeous shots of Angelo from last winter which I have yet to upload on here as he turned into one amazing model as well.
As I turned into the next corner from my street, I suddenly heard a very loud warning call from a Robin, right in my ear. So, I stopped and spun around only to lock eyes with an incredible cutie at eye level and less than one foot from me.
The unusual thing is that once I stopped and turned around, he seemed mighty pleased that his call to attention had worked and he stopped chirping. He even stopping bowing. Instead, he fluffed himself up and then proceeded to model for me like the ultimate top model. Right away, I gently asked him if I could take his picture as he was just so adorable and fluffy.
Now how do I know this was a male Robin? I just knew. It has to do with the energy of how the male birds look at me versus how the female ones do. Hard to explain. So far, I have been right 95% of the time. The females who have already had kids look at me with motherly affection and the younger ones with adoring affection (for their foster mom: me) whilst the male birds will either flirt with me or look at me with a very probing or even sometimes skeptical glance. DB did a real soul-searching number on me ;-)
Mind you, this was not one of my resident Robins nor visiting ones nor even the neighborhood sweetie from a few months earlier in the fall of 2016 as she lives around a garden hedge about 10 minutes from me in the opposite direction.
Well, this cutie not only let me take a slew of images of him, but he totally helped me out. I even was able to move around directly in front of him as my camera was only focusing on the dead leaves at first. I zoomed in, I zoomed out.
He was the ultimate posing pro and I have a good 100+ images of him that are mostly spot on. I tried out various angles and he even let me walk around him. Then I wanted to just hang out with him and thank him as he was so sweet and I basically was only looking into my camera instead of at him. I also figured I could maybe try out some super close-up portraits of just his head.
Well, a bicyclist with a really big black dog (on a leash) drove and ran by across from us so the darling hopped away into the cover of another hedge. But, we spent quite a few minutes together and it was all so magical. He most definitely is another little Buddha Angel.
I think this "dreamboat" may be one of my late resident senior Robin St. Rudy's sons from the summer of 2016 - just a feeling because he acted exactly like the Rudy Junior who came to my terrace that August and of whom I took a picture. Plus, the garden he is at home in (another small building complex) is not that far from mine as it starts at the end of my block and is thus partially across the same street (mine is in the middle), though with a few posh villas thrown in between for good measure.
Throughout 2016, I dreamed of getting some really nice close-up shots of a sweet Robin with great feather detail in a winterly hedge. Well, my wish was more than granted quite unexpectedly. It always happens when you least expect it ;-)
The best thing was that I kept running into DB each time I would walk to that bus stop over the course of the next few months after the above session. As a result, I have numerous cute shots of him, albeit more distant ones as each time another human being ended up walking by and messing up our bonding sessions. One girl even stopped and started talking to me while I was clearly focused on DB with my camera... But, I am most grateful for the initial magical session we had together a good year ago ;-)