Birds Show Birds

Given my lack of a suitable long reach lens I'm forced to photograph larger or more confiding species, so it's more Mute Swans and Mallards I'm afraid.

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Panasonic G1 with 45mm, f/2.8 Leica DG Macro-Elmarit

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Panasonic G1 with 45mm, f/2.8 Leica DG Macro-Elmarit
This is the male which carries a colour ring, known as a "Darvic ring". My records show this guy being ringed on 30th January 2001 at this location. I was one of a team of about 9 people assembled to catch this individual, his 4 siblings and his parents, the young having been hatched in the year 2000, so he's 11 years old this year. The female is unringed so I know nothing about her.

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Panasonic G1 with 105mm, f/2.8 Sigma DG Macro

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Panasonic G1 with 105mm, f/2.8 Sigma DG Macro
A confiding pair of Mallard.

The only photograph that was cropped was image 2, some minor cropping only, all images from raw files processed in Bibble Pro 5

Barrie
 
A Dunnock photographed through a double glazed window

I've taken several, either of a single bird or a pair which might be starting to nest in my hedge, these guys do tend to breed rather early in the spring. The lens was zoomed to the 200mm setting.

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Dunnock (Prunella modularis)
Panasonic G1 with 50-200mm, f/2.8-3.5 Olympus Zuiko Digital (4/3 fitting) @ f/8, 1/320 sec, iso 400


Barrie
 
Everyone, these birds are so lovely. I am especially a fan of all the gull photos but i have a deep personal affection for those birds in particular..

These are all so great tho... I am so glad to be a part of such a talented community, you all really capture the spirit of each bird with such clarity. Thank you for all these photos.
 
The Lark Ascending

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

George Meredith
 
A beautiful poem by George Meredith, thank you, Barrie. And here I had been expecting Shelly's "Ode to a Skylark".


Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert -
That from Heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight -

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody: -

Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingéd thieves:

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers -
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh - thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Matched with thine would be all
but an empty vaunt -
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.


See what your image hath wrought, pdh? I think it is a wonderful picture really because of the sky and clouds, the bird on the wing and how small it makes me feel looking up with you from down below.
 
good heavens ... it was intended rather tongue-in-cheek, but it just goes to show the power of an image, and I'm glad i posted ... and glad that it's cheered you and Barrie both ...
 
Long-tailed Tit

One of an active pair of Long-tailed Tits (Aegithalos caudatus) who were building a nest in some dense blackthorn and bramble scrub this morning, I was lucky to get this one to stop and perhaps catch its breath, as well as get it some what in focus :)

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Panasonic G1 with 50-200mm, f/2.8-3.5 Olympus Zuiko Digital (4/3 fitting) @ f/8, 1/320 sec, iso 200

Barrie
 
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