Purples Martins returning from somewhere in South America.
Bring on the insectivores. 🦟🦟🦟
© Karen McRae, 2019
birds in flight
Birds of Summer (1)
Sumac and Starlings
Pretty winged things.
© Karen McRae, 2016
Flight Patterns
Part of the rhythm of autumn; skies interspersed with migratory birds, punctuation marks of the shifting seasons.
[Longish exposures of Canadian Geese, and a lone seagull]
© Karen McRae, 2015
The Sky in Bloom
Ah, yes, more Purple Martins. And I’m not done with them quite yet.
[A composite image]
© Karen McRae, 2014
Up with the Birds
Above: Purple Martins in flight
I stopped in to see the Purple Martins after a very early start to my day. If I were a Robin I might have got the first worm…
There is a lot of activity as they are busily collecting materials for their little nest-box homes. I spotted a pair of Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) attempting to build a nest in one of the boxes. It seemed that the Martins were discouraging their presence but those Starlings are tenacious.
Above: Moving in ~ A Starling in flight, gathering nesting materials
Each type of bird has its own wonderful shifting form when in movement. I don’t think I could ever tire of observing and trying to capture these various forms. Anyway, I like how these images look a bit like drawings and this process is giving me some ideas (and reference material) for an art project.
© Karen McRae, 2014
Purple Martins
The gorgeous Purple Martins have returned to their summer home near the river. I saw a little bit of nest-building material being collected but mostly the swallows were zipping about catching insects when I made these photographs.
I love their songs and when you hear an entire community of them vocalizing together – especially once the young are hatched – it’s really quite a wonderful auditory experience. I’ll try to make a little recording at some point but there is a soundbite link below if you’re interested.
Click here to listen: Purple Martin Vocalizations (Soundclip from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.) Imagine perhaps 100 birds making those sounds…
It’s been so beautiful outside it’s been hard to stay indoors!
[The image with three birds is a composite (layered) image showing various flight acrobatics.]
© Karen McRae, 2014
Spring Belongs to the Birds
Birdsong and squinting into the sun. The earth is greening.
© Karen McRae, 2013
Dissolution
Taking things apart.
Above are the two separate images I had combined in the previous post. The duck is cropped to make it less central. It still feels very familiar to me this particular bird-in-flight form.
It twigged a memory of watching the herons in flight during the last days of Autumn, just before migration. It is such a different form.
[Thank you to everyone who joined in the discussion for the last post. It was very interesting!]
© Karen McRae, 2013
draw and shoot 