Showing posts with label bird. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bird. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

giving you the bird

the iowa state bird, the goldfinch, that is...
goldfinch

do you see him? i love spotting these little birds as their yellow feathers are so very bright and beautiful. one day earlier this spring, that cherry blossom tree was full of chirps and probably 8 - 10 pairs of goldfinches. they would constantly fly in and out and they don't sit still long, so i'm lucky to have captured them in focus at all. 

[a sad/funny/one-in-a-million chance story including an iowa goldfinch and rob lowe, the actor... a few years ago rob lowe came to des moines to play in the pro-am golf tournament associated with the Principal Charity Classic- a senior pga event. during that tournament, rob lowe hit a golf ball which then collided with a goldfinch, our state bird, in flight! unfortunately, the poor creature flew no more :(
but rob lowe did survive the aftermath in the media and as the butt of many a local joke, which probably much to his relief, did not include a certain videotape scandal... :) ]

here's another goldie -or maybe it's the same one- in a different tree:

goldfinch

for being in an urban setting, there is a lot of bird activity around my house. here's a female cardinal sitting on our roof:

cardinal

and her fella in his brightest red feathers in our back yard

cardinal

we also have nuthatches, house & purple finches, sparrows [pests!], robins, blue jays, hawks and more. you can always tell when a hawk is soaring above- all of a sudden, all of the birds in the hood go silent and it gets eerily quiet. 

what kind of birds flutter around your neighborhood?