WBWXLI

Perceptions From a Lost Continent

All summer long I have been out in the fields and wetlands scoping out birds to photograph. While I am always on the look out for the exotic, it is the ordinary residents of our estuaries that fill in the long droughts between between more remarkable sightings. It is a major part of the challenge of nature photography to capture a common species in a new light. Case in point, my old lovers, the Blue heron and Great egrets. The long and lean supermodels of Michigan swamps are everywhere prancing knee deep in the shallows with that quirky runway gate. I have reams of these stately, statuesque birds locked in stoic poses, but the captures I truly go gaga for are the victorious "fish-in-beak" shots. In the long swirling whirlpool off my photographic DNA I have been predisposed to taking picture after picture of these giant, frame filling birds when I probably should be spending the gift of my free time in search of rarer quarry.
   I recently showed one of my prized Great Blue photos to a duck hunting pal and to my horror he tore at my heart with his quick cutting comment, "That is one hell of an ugly bird!"
   He could have slammed the looks of my first born with no less effect. The fog of my loving gaze lifted and I could see what he meant; the long skinny legs, disproportionate beak, and the hot little coals it calls eyes may not be considered charming by everyone. I wanted to hurt him back with a sharp quip denigrating his beloved ducks but it was no use, my mind was shaken blank with this frank perception.
   I suppose those beautifully lanky, near emaciated human supermodels might be worth a cautious, more dispassionate second look as well. Are they really so pretty or merely hanger thin stick figures disguising their structural oddities with luxurious plumage too?
   I wonder!

Most every evening I'm in Midland I'll stop over by the Eagle ponds to see if I can reel in a decent juvenile photo. Today I got lucky and managed to lock lens on Raggedy Ann, the roughest looking of the young eagles crowding the air. No rail thin supermodel here, just a rugged killing machine. Even given the advantage of my hilltop observation post these birds seem to materialise out of thin air and often give me a start. A distracted photographer would be easy prey for one of these ten pound missiles zinging in from the stratosphere. Go ahead, laugh at the thought, eagles hunting humans does seem preposterous, but the Polynesians who first inhabited the South Island of New Zealand had just such a horror to contend with. New Zealand was our planets only avian dominated mini-continent, here nature dealt a radical evolutionary wild card: only two types of bats accounted for the isolated islands entire population of mammals; no cats, no rats, no dogs, none of that nasty big brained behavior to compete with.  Bird life thus reigned supreme and flourished unhindered. Picture, if you will, tree covered mountain slopes giving way to vast Savannah valleys thickly populated with a variety of flightless birds topping out in shear size with the 400 pound 12 foot tall Moa bird.
 


   The apex predator of this isolated world was Haasts Eagle, the "Tiger of the Sky," a massive airborne meat eater at least triple the weight of the Bald eagle. It was not so much a soaring bird as my local eagles are, the Haasts had a stubbier profile on it's ten foot wing span designed for flapping flight, propelling it through the tight forest canopy at speeds in excess of 50 mph. It's striking power was calculated to be roughly that of a cinder block dropped from an eight storey building. The length of it talons and ferocity of grip was on par with the Bengal tiger. While this bird was thought to be an example of aboriginal mythology by the first European explorers, modern DNA science has rendered ancient Maori cave drawings accurate, a man eating eagle did exist on the New Zealand Archipelago.
   I kid you not!

   Bone specimen analysis indicate the Haasts kill move was a devastating one two punch. The giant Moa bird was dropped cold with a pelvis crushing body blow delivered with the first set of talons followed by a skull piercing head shot with the next. This aerial assault proved equally effective on human beings. The giant eagle would then linger over it's kill like an African lion. That's the privilege of being the apex predator, complete mealtime serenity.
   I think you get the gruesome picture, man arrives on a lost continent H.G. Wells would have been proud to conjure, becoming a tasty new entree for the mighty Flying Tiger. Sad to say, the Maori oral history describing small humans being snatched up and flown away to feed hungry nestlings is true. Unfortunately for the Haasts eagle the Maori people adored feasting on the grazing Moa birds and their herbivorous ilk, hunting them into extinction. No Moa, pardon the pun. The doomed Haasts eagle, thought to comprise only 1000 pairs in the best of times, clicked lights out on New Zealand's fantastic lost world of the birds a mere five hundred years ago.

    The BBC produced a little docu-drama about the man hunting exploits of the gigantic Haasts eagle, here is frighteningly realistic two an one half minute morsel of it for you. Safe journey!

   Thank you for your overwhelmingly kind response to my comments last week about the challenges facing the fire service in Detroit. I have read your thoughts again and again.
   Our local TV news did a story on the visit Fire Commissioner Austin had at our engine house and I thought you might find it interesting as a follow up to last weeks post. Yes, I have a non-speaking role in it, about a two second shot at the table calculated to emphasize our aging man power before our young firefighting prodigy Perry rightfully dominates the screen! This is footage taken at my wonderful 112 year old firehouse where WBW is fussed over many a late night.
Click here to view news reporter Charlie LaDuff's informative video!

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday.  A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most beautiful treasurers, the birds.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry, it contains a link for your readers to share in the fun. Or, you can copy this link on to your blog page to share WBW. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!

The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres!

         Please consider submitting one of your older "hall of fame" posts to a fresh audience.

Come on it's your turn!

World Bird Wednesday XL

A Meditation

   As Diane Arbus, the great photographer of unusual people, once said,"I never get the picture I take, it's always better or worse."  Ain't that the truth!
   I had a great day watching young Bald eagles soaring in a very high and bright sky. I clicked picture after picture knowing full well I was getting loads of muddy dark shapes pasted against white backgrounds to stuff the virtual waste basket with. It was probably one of those days more suited to nature appreciation then photography. Still, you never know what might shake out. The big birds were scrapping high in the sky testing each others verve. Tracking them in the long lens was fun and got downright exciting when the juveniles swooped low. "If only the light was better!" How often have you thought that? One odd ball picture of the young eagles passing straight overhead turned out better than the others and serves as a remembrance of the day. You can bet the house note I will eventually get the job done taking their picture. I spotted nine juveniles in the air at one time! Where did they all come from? I'm thinking the adults had a stellar season child rearing and that is good news indeed.

   I hung around all day hoping that by evening the sun would be low enough to throw some defining luminescence on the young eagles. As if playing a practical joke, the buggers road the thermals right out of town or sat frozen in far away trees when the perfect light finally showed golden.

   A flight of geese left the pond and I snapped off a few shots from a little elevation more out of reflex than anything.  Amusing reflections maybe, but when you have eagles on your mind that hardly satisfies the great expectations. Then good fortune struck, the kind of unexpected visitation that whips a nature photographer into a frenzy. Buzzing around the hill and flashing white wing markings a small flock of Night hawks descended! From trying to solve the problem of catching the slow glide of a dark juvenile eagle to tracking the manic maneuverings of a tiny Night hawk is quite a shift. Funny, a little panic struck me. Don't blow this opportunity! I have been schooled at the hand of serendipity, these unplanned moments are a tease, seldom do they last long enough to record them successfully. In a New York minute the hawks moved along, the sun set, and I went home to unlock my camera's treasure chest to see if what rattled inside was silver or lead.       

Common Nighthawk, Chordeiles minor

While there has been plenty of fun a feild it's been in rough contrast to my work days in Detroit. The shifts are crushing; thirteen shootings in a single day, the kind with bullets not cameras; bleeding people knocking on the firehouse door looking for sanctuary from their assailants; nameless bodies in burnt out vacant houses; and the fires, my god, day after day it goes on. Our fire engine is so beat up the compartment doors are held shut with cloths line. The power steering leaks like a sieve, it feels as though my wrists will break clutching the wheel as we careening around the pot holes in the road, there are no mechanics to make repairs. Our new Fire Commissioner stopped by one morning for a fireside chat. He comes to us from sunny Los Angeles and does not know Midwest post industrial madness very well. When a 19 year veteran of the Detroit fire wars, a guy with a necklace of burn scars around his throat asks him about fire house closings and the sorry state of our infrastructure, the Comish pleads budget constraints and suggests that if this fire fighter isn't up to it, maybe he should find a different line of work. My jaw drops in disbelief at the obvious insult my brothers question received. Our new Southern Californian boss hasn't even experienced winter yet, sopping wet and flash frozen in brutal January cold snaps. We laugh at his naive bravado.

  

   For me bird photography is meditation. I sit silently and observe. Sometimes I bring a picture back but always I leave something more substantial behind. Michigan's wetlands are filled with my grief and weariness. Mine is a confusing world, and right at the moment the absurdity of it feels particularly perilous and threatening. Those little pockets of time when sanity reigns and the bones of my resolve can thicken again are all the more precious. It doesn't really matter if the pictures come out or not.

  It is WBWXXXX. Of all the wonderful things in my life this is one of the most unexpected and inspiring. The anticipation of the peaceful moments spent with you observing and discussing that which is beautiful and intriguing helps to frame my thoughts while fighting the good fight all week long. Thank you for sharing! I am grateful.

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most beautiful treasurers, the birds.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!

The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to incourage your compadres!

Please consider submitting one of your older "hall of fame" posts to a fresh audiance.

Come on it's your turn!

World Bird Wednesday XXXIX

Taking the Long View

American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus)

   Those superbly detailed close-ups we enjoy week after week on WBW are the nature photographer's sexy new lover. Brand new cameras overstuffed with mega-pixels and lightening fast auto-focus lenses produce mind boggling results. On top of that comes the guilty pleasure of post processing, upping the ante even further as we sharpen, crop, and saturate to our hearts content. Those glistening eye highlights and finely sharpened feather textures will stop even a non-nature lover in their tracks.

   "Did you take that?" They gasp in astonishment.

   Little do they know of our dirty little secret. It's the technology, stupid!

   Only recently have these magical powers been bestowed on photographers by the fast advance of digital photography. Have you seen the dragonfly and hummingbird pictures out there? When but now has that been possible?

   I remember sitting in front of the TV in 1964 when The Beatles took the stage on The Ed Sullivan Show. The girls went mad with an emotional upheaval that was louder than the rock and roll they came to enjoy. Every TV connected kid made up their mind in that moment to become a musician. I could think of nothing else, it pierced me like eagle talons. That madness was to grip me again 47 years later when I happened upon an epic picture of a Great egret flipping a frog into the air before munching it down. The perfectly focused close-up of the frogs flight was frozen in super natural clarity. I was agog that such a spine tingling picture was possible without the financial backing of The National Geographic Society. I went stupid with desire to take a picture like that. Just like 1964, I researched and fretted over the purchase of equipment I did not know how to use. Patiently I rehearsed the skills that were described in the articles and slowly, every now and then, I would take a picture that showed I was getting closer to the kind of results I yearned for. 

   I admit it, I was smitten with a child like desire to be the guy who gives the world those pictures.

   It occurred to me last week that this overwhelming desire to take closer and more finely detailed pictures could be an artistic dead end, a trap. Not to say the difficult skills involved in applying the latest technology toward producing those crowd pleasing portraits are not worthy of our passion, far from it. The shear emotional appeal of tracking down and locking lens onto birds at close quarters is impossible not to strive for. All the big shooters are running in this race, it takes loads of time and a sizable financial commitment but the chances of having the Happy Accident of taking a truly remarkable picture have never been better. The possibility of crossing a diamond with a pearl; in this case an interesting pose matched with the technical revelations of today's digital breakthroughs, demands our attention. We are seeing pictures never before thought possible. It is so now.

  These new macro pictures are, however, not necessarily the most satisfying pictures ever taken. The temptation to get closer can overwhelm other artistic considerations. Context is often lost!

You could hypothetically fill an entire frame with nothing more than the eye of a bug but it's shock value would come more from it's appeal as a science project than an artistic achievement.

  "Back up a little!" The thought came into my head with the force of a gong. Why do I so rarely photograph birds in the context of their environment?

   Think: Does the limb this bug is perched on belong to a tree or a bush? Is the bush in a forest or a swamp? Is it spring or summer in the swamp?  You can't get that information from staring into an eyeball.  

  

 On the surface, putting a thing in it's place sounds easy enough to achieve, it should happen often enough just by accident, but as I started rummaging through files looking for pictorial examples I realised to my horror how rigidly focused my concentration on the reckless pursuit of super detailed close-ups is. Where in the name of heaven were all the pictures that reveal birds as an intrinsic part of the natural world?

The Rule of Three!

   There is a rule that I have perhaps followed to blindly, a facet of the universal rule of threes that states: A birds image should take up 1/3 of the total frame to be seen properly. While it's still a good rule, overdoing it tends to make every picture look like it was taken for a field guide.

  The rules of three are broken at your own risk. Even the Beatles spoke of their musical ramifications. Notice how the last phrase in the lyrics of Beatle songs repeats three times at the end of their myriad three minute hits. Start with "She Loves You" and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and continue right on through "Strawberry Fields Forever." It works.

  

In photography the rock solid rule of thirds reveals the secrets of a well composed picture too.  Slicing our pictures equally from top to bottom and from side to side, like a tic-tac-toe board, will show the lines overlapping in four places, at the perfect thirds. Ordinarily one of those points is where the focus of a well composed picture will be. When a illustration has a little more air in it, and the subject takes only a small percentage of the full frame, this rule becomes paramount. Following it inexplicably helps to focus the power of a composition. It is heady stuff.

   This important facet of the rule of thirds is explained in depth by clicking HERE!

Lascaux, France we have been hooked on pictures. From charcoal and blood to the electronic blips of digital photography we have developed increasingly exacting ways to reinvent the artistic endeavours of our ancestors. Technologies advances are well documented in the demanding speciality of bird photography. As we look deeper into today's hypnotic macro realms don't forget the challenge of taking a step back and showing your subject as part of a larger picture.

Why the superpowers never sent a poet into space I'll never know, but they did send cameras. Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders achieved one of the greatest pictures ever taken with his Earth Rise image. He took the long view and changed the way thinking people regard our planetary home forever. As photographers we owe much to the Techies. They provide new ways for the creative mind to snatch relevance from the chaos. As it never has before, technology makes it possible to capture the wonder of planet Earth in wonderful clarity.

It's our planet, lets go take its picture!

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

                                                                                                                                   Credit: NASA

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most beautiful treasurers, the birds.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!

The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to incourage your compadres!

Come on it's your turn!

 

World Bird Wednesday XXXIIX

Barbarians at Their Gates                         

   The doldrums of summer have covered Michigan like thick hot syrup on a stack of dry flour pancakes. It is hard to move let alone think; even the grass is tired of growing. Yesterday I tried to fight the malaise, threw my camera and water bottles into the car and sped off for the wetlands determined to find something to photograph.
    My journey took me first to Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge. All the many rivers in the Saginaw watershed mingle here before washing out into Lake Huron by way of the Saginaw river.  This is sanctuary for roughly 280 bird species throughout the year. In the autumn, tens of thousands of geese and ducks flock to Shiawassee during migration. "Globally Significant," is how the official pamphlet touts it. The views are vast here and my 400mm lens isn't quite up to the challenge of pulling in the marquee Sandhill cranes and Trumpeter swans lounging in the lazy distance. This is a refuge, and while I normally would have stalked closer, that kind of nonsense is strictly verboten!
   On the authorised trail, where I tramped into the secluded photographic blind, the canny fowl skittered away long before I was properly stowed away in that tiny wooden shack; huddled there to wait silently with the spiders and the flies for those prime bird photo opportunities that would never come.  Showing their exquisite good taste, the insects, themselves far from miserable, threw a grand party delighting in their yummy human cuisine.
    The heat and the claustrophobia grew. A hallucination swept over me; I was a chain gang prisoner steaming in a solitary sweat box fretting out my "failure to communicate." Through the tiny slats cut into the wooden cell I could see the Boss man rocking in the shade of his porch, sipping a cool lemonade with ol' Blue the trusty blood hound lounging contentedly at his feet, lately worn out from running me down.
   I got the hell out of there.

  As I think about it now, this strange illusion probably had its sprouting in the latest real life run in I had with the good folks at Dow Chemical security. To capsulise a little history: There is a hill in a public park which overlooks the chemical plants retention ponds, ponds that are crowded with bird life, ponds that are owned by Dow Chem. When Dow security is feeling frisky they will send their uniformed patrolmen out into Overlook park to question my motives in having a Dslr with a 400mm lens in my hot little hands. They only do this if I'm alone on the hill taking bird pictures. In a now famous slow chase, Dow's security cars once followed me home from the ponds. I drove at a deliberately slow 20mph crawl the whole way just to spite them, they never budged from my bumper. Yes, there is history here.
  I was on my way up there again two evenings ago testing out a camera pack that velcros onto my 10 speed's rear bike rack. Tooling down our scenic woodland bike trail in route, I pulled up hither and yon to whip out the camera and take a few pictures. The new system was working fine, I could dismount, yank out the camera, push over the bike, and be shooting inside 15 seconds. It was a pretty evening to be at play, the golden hour's sunlight would be shinning upon the birds that call Dow Chemical home and I was on my way to my Overlook Park battlegrounds where I hoped to take some butt kickin' pelican photos. Perfect.

 I'm sure my buddies at Dow Chem Security are still talking about how they scrambled to converge on the intruder at the fence line. I was quickly pegged sneaking up on my ten speed to snap off long distance reconnaissance photos, no doubt. I imagine them monitoring the hill from their guard shack nerve center, dispatching their own muscle before calling the County Sheriffs when potential corporate spies arrive.
   And so it goes again, two county sheriffs, two burly security dudes and I debating abstract legal theory, case in point: Who owns the air above Dow chemical and the photographic rights to the birds there in? These debates used to be amusing, they've become tedious. Why does Dow insists on having this inane confrontation over and over again when they admit I am doing nothing illegal and must put up with my tongue lashings before watching me peddle off Scott free to click away another day? The police assure me their heavy handed tactics will persist in spite of my impertinent objections.
   Lest you think me immune to this treatment, the real pressure comes not from Dow but from those dear to me; poor Suzanne who worries I'm calling down corporate hellfire and even the boys at the firehouse, where we discuss the topic ad nauseum, are ticked off. They have great fun badgering me on in my singular pursuit of happiness. I am impressed how brave they are for me.
   Improbable conspiracy theories abound, but wait, is that a Dow car slowing down in front of the house?

  You know, I thank heaven all summer long for Blue herons. They are Michigan's most dependable bird. In the dog days, when nothing else is flying they'll give you at least a fighting chance for a cool jpeg. The lead picture in this posting is one taken by my son Joshua I'm proud to say, the 'kid' who fights fires with his old man in Detroit. Try being the guy inside a burning building who also has to worry about his aging, one year from retirement Dad falling out while hauling hose in the middle of the night. My daughter Shannon, who earns her way in the field of graphic design, has gently guided me toward the life of a writer and photographer, she sees something there for me, something safer and less dependant on adrenalin. The kids don't question why their goofy Dad takes bird pictures in remote swamps on his days off, they try to understand it and share in it. Their boundless young spirits and creativity energy is impossible for me not to emulate, even if it makes a giant, godlike corporate entity like Dow uncomfortable in the process. In my own small world an issue of respect is at stake. 

   In reality, I don't want anyone mad at me, especially Blue herons. They're all I have left! 

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most beautiful treasurers, the birds.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!

The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to incourage your compadres!

Come on it's your turn!

World Bird Wednesday XXXVII

In Pursuit of the Green Heron

I had set several goals at the outset of the summer season to concentrate on. Most of them, like my desire to take one of those artful super detailed hummingbird pictures, remain bullet points on my hope list still waiting for nature to bless me with opportunity. If your listening Nature; this is not a veiled compliant lest you think me ungrateful, I am just fine trying to hit the knuckle balls you serve up so unexpectedly on my days in the fields and swamps. Many Thanks! 

  The unpredictability of this nature photography business is at the heart of it's continuing attraction for me. That being said, there are certain birds, like the Green heron (Butorides virescens), that are agonisingly common yet so fleet and shadowy that what pictures there are of them in my portfolio amount to a collection of mostly near miss, out of focus brown smudges. What gives? 

  Why is this bird such a hard nut to crack?

  

 

My pursuit of Green herons goes back seven years when I purchased my country home on the Pine River as a down payment on my retirement years. Even though I am essentially and more or less contentedly a city boy born and bred on the East side of Detroit, I felt like I needed a hermitage; a place to hide out, to know nature.  

  Tough town Detroit. I was 14 in 1967 during the Summer Riots when the top blew off Motown, the smoke and gunfire has been a constant companion ever since. Much time was spent in the auto factories and the dingy stamping plants that hammered out rolled steel into fenders. I did not have to serve in the military during the Vietnam war years as my brothers did. There was a draft lotto back then and based on your birthday you received a number 1 through 365. Receiving a "1" meant you and everyone else who shared your birthday would be drafted first. The balls were drawn in a bazaar ceremony where your fate was sealed one way or the other; my ball read 325. I traveled the world instead of going to war between my 17th and 23rd years. Coming back home to stay, the travel bug gone, I hung up my backpack. Through the tangled years I held the fantasy of living on a river and breaking free of my crumbling city. The second I stepped foot on this river property I knew I wanted to be part of it. I acted on that impulse.
  It was the call of the wild.


 

  A Green Heron lived on the near bank amongst the jumble of high grass and tree limbs of the Rio Pine when I first called this home. The road to my little house pokes into the Chippewa Nature Area putting me smack inside 1400 acres of unfenced back to nature wetland forest. It was all new and open to me, a great and barely comprehensible playground. I was a door slammer in those days. Every time I excitedly went outside I scared the bejeebies out of every living thing a quarter mile around. The herons especially seemed to know my every move for even when I intended to silently creep up to the high bank and peer over off they'd fly before my hand ever left the door knob. It didn't take me long to realise I had jumped into the deep end of this nature thing and I needed to discover a different kind of silence if I wanted to be more than a clumsy disturbance in this old school neighborhood.
  Getting close to a Green heron on the Pine River became the litmus test for my emerging mindset. This could not be rushed.
 In this world you get where your going one day at a time.  

  One could spend a happy lifetime studying Green herons so deep and beautiful are their mysteries. The neck of this bird immediately sets it apart. It folds perfectly and invisibly into the torso morphing the bird into the shape of a chubby gull. Then, whether the neck is unfolded slowly and puffed up in a romantic gesture or explosively catapulted forward spearing a minnow, the spectacle is an unexpected pleasure.

  Consider this Green heron controversy some starry night round the campfire...

  There are thought to be rare genius level Green herons who have discovered how to bait fish. It has been observed these herons using feathers, bugs, and such articles as they can find to drop on the waters surface from above to attract the curious and hungry minnows upward from the depths. This is tool usage; a very rare occurrence with birds and demonstrates a rising intelligence. Crows also seem to be making this quantum leap forward. They have been seen purposefully dropping walnuts onto busy roads shelling them for easy consumption by using the passing cars as their nutcrackers! 

  Is this emerging behavior an example of the evolutionary process working it's magic on the Green heron and crow? Have they touched the monolith ala Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey? 

  No matter your opinion on these issues, how could you not love a bird that poses such intriguing questions?  

 Joe the Bird Whistler was up to my house recently working on  mastering the finer aspects of the Canon Dslr. As he sat quietly on the high bank above the river Joe spotted a Green heron hunting for minnows in the river grass. He waved me over and gave me the heads up. Even then it was tough to see, so well camouflaged was our birds movements through the reeds. We watched for awhile, I asked Joe for the camera and whispered,"I'm going to try and get closer." The high bank on my side of the river is a steep drop of about twenty feet. As quietly and peacefully as I could scuttle down, the first step would be making the shoreline. The Green heron remained steadfast, continuing to stalk the shallows when I finally made the tall grass of the bank. Oh, he knew I was there alright. The line of sight was cluttered with green as I crept closer and closer, a clear view continuing to escape me, my arms growing heavy with the exertion of holding a steady camera while expecting the bird to flush any second. Finally I sat and rested, the heron so close I could have bent over and kissed him. There was a sense of relief when he flew off to the opposite shore.

It is said: You can take the boy out of the city but you can't take the city out of the boy. That's probably why the next morning, still hung over with the transcendence of my close encounter, I forgot and slammed the door on my way out. Joe says I'm still not fully evolved! 

Pray tell: Why isn't the Green heron green?

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most beautiful treasurers, the birds.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!

The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres!

Come on it's your turn!