Tag Archives: Birds

Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Solitary.

And here‘s a second response to this week’s challenge.

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Nature is Cruel

By Vladimir Brezina

At the Jersey Shore last week…

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More of the action at the Jersey Shore to come in future posts…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Free Spirit.

A frigate bird soaring above the palms at sunset…

Belize, 2010. More photos are here.

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Close Encounters with Florida Birds

By Vladimir Brezina

I am still sorting out my hundreds of photos of birds from our Florida trip back in February. But this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge theme, “Close”, has prompted me to marvel at how closely I was able to approach many of the birds.

I rented a kayak and paddled through the mangroves. The birds perched in the tree tops—some of the trees were absolutely festooned with birds, like some kind of fruit—and looked down at me nonchalantly.

Other birds stood on low branches projecting strategically out over the water. These two just looked at me stolidly, even though I was so close that my kayak was actually bumping into their branch. I could have picked them up with my hands.

And so I was able to get some good shots of the various birds. I have a reasonable idea of what many of them are—some are unmistakable!—but identification by experts would certainly be appreciated!

Some other bird photos from that trip are here, here, here, and here.

Florida Birds Go Fishing

By Vladimir Brezina

In February, we spent a few days kayaking on the Gulf Coast of Florida, in the St. Petersburg area. While Johna was edging into artistry at the Sweetwater Kayak Symposium, I rented a kayak and paddled around taking photos of birds.

There were birds everywhere. And while not exactly tame, they were not shy at all. In fact, they had clearly found that in some ways living beak-to-cheek with humans was to their advantage.

While some of the birds still did their own fishing in the old-fashioned way…

… others had found that there was a better way. Every human fisherman—and there were many—had at least one or two birds looking over his shoulder. Of course, it’s possible that they were just being friendly

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Friendship

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Friendship.

It’s true friendship if you are happy to accompany your friend fishing.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Together

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Together.

And even though I’ve posted them already, not too long ago, I just have to use these—

The full series of photos is here.

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Other nice “Together” interpretations:

Coast Guard ♥ Birds

By Vladimir Brezina

It’s heartwarming to see how much the Coast Guard loves and cherishes its birds! It spares no effort to erect, along every waterway, ingenious structures calculated to be ideal for gulls, cormorants, even ospreys to rest on and, now that it’s spring, to build their nests and raise their young, safe from predators and from human intrusion… well, except for some kayakers ;-)

Beastly (and Avian) New Yorkers

By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson

After more than 15  (Johna) and 20 (Vlad) years living in New York City (in Vlad’s case, just one block away from Central Park), we finally managed to visit the Central Park Zoo.

The Central Park Zoo was New York City’s first zoo, starting in 1859 as a menagerie of exotic animals given to the Park. (Nowadays, owners of exotic animals that have grown uncomfortably large for small New York City apartments are too impatient for donation: they simply dump the animals in the Park—that’s how we get alligators in the sewers…) The zoo is small (6.5 acres) but manages to house a surprisingly large number of animals—we didn’t get to see even half of them—in “natural” enclosures, some of them walk-through, that do not feel at all cramped.

As it turns out, the Zoo’s inhabitants are some of the most quintessential New Yorkers: The birds and beasts embody all the characteristic New York attitudes, from vanity to boredom to slit-eyed suspicion.

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Finials: A Photoessay

By Vladimir Brezina

Fierce eagles on top of poles are a grand imperial convention

but in Florida every pole has on it a bird

that is not an eagle, but (usually) a pelican.

They perform, preen

or just sleep.