A Different Perspective

Here’s a small study of the backside of the birds I’ve been observing recently. On a normal day, I’d be a bit disappointed when I don’t catch a bird facing the lens. However, I actually find these photos quite interesting.

I’ve always felt that if I can’t see the glint in the bird’s eye, then it’s not a worthy photo. That little reflection of light is my personal standard for rating a picture. When I was scrolling through the raw images and deciding which ones I’d select to crop and retain, I wasn’t focused on the bird’s position. However, once I looked at the entire lot of pics, I realized I had captured several birds which were facing backwards. Out of absolute habit, I had only selected photos which included that little sparkle in the eye and hence, the backwards perspective automatically included the glint.

Blue Jay

Personally, this species presents an absolutely brilliant “mosaic” pattern of blues and white on its back, which makes me think that a backwards facing Blue Jay is actually a preferred perspective!

Northern Mockingbird

Field Sparrow

Red-winged Blackbird (male)

White-crowned Sparrow

Northern Flicker

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Come on! If you don’t catch the backside of this cutie, you can easily fail to identify it! The name says it all.

Eastern Meadowlark

Red-winged Blackbird (female)

If you look closely in the last photo of this beautiful Red-winged blackbird, you can see a very long spider web that stretches from one side of the image to the other. On that day, spiders were “ballooning” which is a method for spiders to move from one place to another by releasing their silk and catching a breeze. One some days in the autumn, when the lighting is right, it’s possible to catch the actual movement as the webs are carried in the wind. This web was caught on the branch and so, I suppose, any “passengers” will now consider our land their new home. Spiders make great food for wild birds, so I’m not unhappy about that!