Birds Feeding
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The waterfowl of the "Kleinhesseloher See" are going into a feeding frenzy as somebody to the right is starting to throw some food at them.
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
It is always exciting to find and photograph a Barred Owl. To catch an adult preparing to feed the youngsters a Garter Snake is a real treat! I assume for both the photographer and the young owls.
Mon or dad feeding one of the 5 young coot.
They are so cute when they ask for food
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My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
Female Black Redstart with prey| Phoenicurus ochruros | 07-2022 | Ticino | Switzerland
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
So this is actually my first bird photo that I am happy with. Naturally, my underwhelming performance in the beaks-and-feather department is nobody's fault but mine (well, and the birds', obviously 😉). I just find avian photography incredibly hard; without some sort of camouflaged bird hide or a bazooka-sized zoom lens that allows you to keep a distance, our feathery friends tend to immediately spot two-legged intruders, and usually they avoid us "nature paparazzi" like the plague (and I can't blame them: after all, we humans are rarely a cause for joy and jubilation in the animal kingdom).
Building a bird hide was never going to work for me since it would conflict with my natural laziness, but what limits my photographic options even further is my stubborn insistence on concentrating solely on the fauna in my garden and its immediate surroundings. Because my garden - my little tropical paradise as I like to call it - is actually rather tiny: it's 40 square-meters, tops.
The main reason I force myself to adhere to this "strictly-garden rule" is to have a distinct profile for my website - www.lacerta-bilineata.com/other-fauna - and my Flickr gallery, because there already are millions of wildlife photographers, and most of them are vastly more talented than I am (and probably also less lazy 😉).
But operating within such a limited space also poses an interesting challenge, and it makes this photographic journey of mine more personal, because it forces me to look closer at the place I call home, and through my daily "safaris" in my garden I actually feel more connected to all the many lifeforms that share this little oasis with me.
There is an obvious downside though: Even though I've slightly "stretched" these rules - anything outside my garden is fair game as long as I don't stray further than 5 meters from the premises or I manage to photograph it from within my garden - certain animals are just very hard to capture (if they ever show up at all).
Which brings me back to my original subject: birds. And thankfully, at least some of them DO show up in and around my garden - but man, these fellas are a picky, nervous bunch. They like my garden just fine - just as long as I'm not in it. I can't remember a single time over the past year since I acquired my new camera that I had a clear shot of even so much as a feather, let alone the kind of detailed portrait I usually aim for.
Imagine my delight this summer when I realized a pair of cute black redstarts had built their nest underneath my neighbor's roof, and in order to quench their chicks' seemingly endless appetite, Mr and Mrs redstart could ill afford passing up the opportunity to hunt in a garden teeming with insect life such as mine - even when I was present.
It still took a lot of patience until mama redstart trusted me enough to get this close, but in the end I finally got my first presentable bird photo 😊
As always, many greetings from Switzerland; try to stay out of the heat and let me know what you think in the comments!
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Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
E. M. Forster
As far as iconic pieces of public art go, none may be as daringly modern or whimsical as Minneapolis’ iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry.
This giant spoon and cherry was erected in 1985 by artist Claes Oldenburg and his wife, Coosje van Bruggen and is the centerpiece of the Walker Art Center’s Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the largest urban sculpture park in the world. Oldenburg is an artist who is known for making oversized versions of everyday objects and food products. Together with his wife he set up a number of public sculptures, including Chicago’s Batcolumn sculpture. The spoon was Oldenburg’s idea, who had a habit of doodling spoons ever since 1962 when he was inspired by a spoon resting on a piece of fake chocolate. The cherry in the piece was van Bruggen’s idea, wanting to use it as a comment on the garden’s otherwise staid layout.
The spoon itself weighs 5,800 pounds and the cherry, another 1,200 pounds. The cherry’s stem also acts as a fountain which sprays into the bowl of the spoon and off into the pond beneath. Even the pond itself has meaning, being shaped to resemble a linden seed, drawing attention to the rows of linden trees planted nearby.
The city of Minneapolis seems to have largely embraced the massive sculpture, expressing almost universal outrage when Spoonbridge and Cherry was vandalized in 2012 as part of a “Kony 2012” protest. The artwork was cleaned up and still remains as a somewhat goofy, definitely unforgettable icon of the Minnesota city.
Julie and old little poppy come to and feed the swans,ducks,geese,gulls and coots.Poppy likes
eating the food as well.
Delicate Eastern Tiger Swallowtail enjoying the sweet Summertime nectar of a Bergamot floret.
Seasonally common.
gachagoodies.blogspot.com/2021/10/feed-monster.html
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Amataria @ Cosmopolitan
Synnergy @ The Liaison Collaborative
Photo taken @ Spooktacular Haunted House
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Yellowbilled stork feeding his offspring
Gadikwe Island, Okavando Delta, Botswana
All rights reserved. © Thomas Retterath 2014
Closeup of a Sparkling Violetear (Colibri coruscans), about to feed. Seen here in the rainforest of Costa Rica.
Pose : LAVAROCK POSES - Female Bento Pose Set 6 (office chair prop included with AV sitter)
мy мυѕιc "Feed your head- Paul Kalkbrenner"
"One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head
Feed your head
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know
Remember what the Dormouse said
Feed your head!"
I think the bird is a lesser whitethroat, but please tell me if you can id it! Sign that I can't get to landscapes...still...more birds and flowers...nearly a year since the last waterfall, gradually losing it (if I ever had it in the first place).
The purple emperor like it salty + cheese is another option to lure them + Aparatura Iris + Leinawald - Forest 2021
My husband built this birdhouse back in Alaska to specific sizes for swallows. Chickadees used it two years in a row. It stood high on a metal pole away from interlopers.
Then we moved here, birdhouse included, and finally, tree swallows! Sounds like quite a few hungry ones inside.
Photo today by my husband, Howard Marsh, using his D4 and my 500mm f/4 on the Manfrotto monopod.