Birders' Nest

[Elgarian Redux]

. 

Once again alas, too much to comment on since I was last here, so I'll just have to settle for my role as occasional fanboy, but this thread as ever overflows with memorable and extraordinary images, and charming exchanges! Bravo, @owlice and @Elgarian Redux!

Your kindness is becoming legendary, my dear fellow. Thank you.

[Elgarian Redux]

You know I'm just going to be making stuff up now, right? 

I would expect no less. I look forward to a future of neatly placed banana skins.

There could be no other name for that duo!

I thought you'd agree, and am glad that you did. ZAP! POW!

And the feeders aren't ugly! They bring the birds closer to you, which is lovely, so they, then, are also lovely. Transitive property at work.

I think that might be squeezing the juice out of logical analysis about as far as it will go, but I applaud the effort, truly. However, if I were in the business of designing bird feeders, I think I'd try to make them a shade more graceful than they are.

But I have to say, when this great cloud of goldfinches descended this morning, we were quietlyclapping our hands with joy, and we didn't care twopence about the ugly feeders, in that moment, because they were the means to such a glorious end. (Actually, I think that's what you were getting at, wasn't it?)

That Dunnock... what a pretty little bird!
I have no Dunnocks.
~~~ sigh ~~~

But you do have 5 million different sorts of sparrow instead!

[Elgarian Redux]

@Iota, thank you! That's very kind of you to say!

I have a little hummingbird you might like. Actually, it might be considered kind of a big hummingbird as hummingbirds go, but still, it's not, ya know, a Kori Bustard or Little Richard chicken...


Talamanca Hummingbird (Costa Rica)

Oh wow! Look at that!. Iridescence! A bird with a head made of labdradorite! What a treasure trove of images you shower upon us, Owl.

[Iota]

@Iota, thank you! That's very kind of you to say!

I have a little hummingbird you might like. Actually, it might be considered kind of a big hummingbird as hummingbirds go, but still, it's not, ya know, a Kori Bustard or Little Richard chicken...


Talamanca Hummingbird (Costa Rica)

Thank you, another beauty! He does look kind of big for a hummingbird, even to me of little experience .. I'm very struck too by his/her rather natty mauve petal bathing cap.

[owlice]

Your kindness is becoming legendary, my dear fellow. Thank you.

^ That! Yes!

[owlice]

I would expect no less. I look forward to a future of neatly placed banana skins.

::falls over laughing::
neatly placed? neatly? hahahahahahaha!!!!
::gasps for air::
::laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs some more::

But I have to say, when this great cloud of goldfinches descended this morning, we were quietlyclapping our hands with joy, and we didn't care twopence about the ugly feeders, in that moment, because they were the means to such a glorious end. (Actually, I think that's what you were getting at, wasn't it?)

You had me a bit worried, but you got there in the end. Hurrah!!

But you do have 5 million different sorts of sparrow instead!

Well, that is true.... there are a lot of nearly or actually identical sparrows here that can be exceedingly hard or impossible to tell apart. And they are all very cute, too, so I will be happy with whatever I see when I see it!

Thank you, another beauty! He does look kind of big for a hummingbird, even to me of little experience ..

Yes, he is one of the larger ones; these are in the "mountain gems" family, and the taxonomy of this and other (possible) subspecies are in question. IOW, this may, or may not, be a Magnificent Hummingbird, depending on the source.

Here's another from the same tribe:
Front


And back but you knew that already

Fiery-throated Hummingbird (Costa Rica)

Each continent has something in this niche. In Africa, it's sunbirds, in Australia, honeyeaters; these and hummingbirds are unrelated to each other (convergent evolution).


Nile Valley Sunbird (Egypt)


Somewhat fuzzy Orange-breasted Sunbird (South Africa)

No pics of specimens from Down Under, but someday, someday...

I've been hearing chestnuts hitting the roof, so gotta go! Gotta catch them all!

[Elgarian Redux]

::falls over laughing::
neatly placed? neatly? hahahahahahaha!!!!
::gasps for air::
::laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs some more::

Erm ... Can I say 'cleverly placed' without you falling about laughing? Or are you planning a full-on bananaskin-splatter assault of fake bird jargon? Blirb! Floob! Bloof! Blorf! Flurb!
(If so I shall hide under this chair.)

You had me a bit worried, but you got there in the end. Hurrah!!

The slow methodical plod sometimes does get me there eventually...

Here's another from the same tribe:
Front

What is it that makes them iridescent? With things like oil slicks, the thin film of oil lying on water produces interference effects like this, but where is the equivalent to the thin film in hummingbird plumage? ... [pause] ... I just tried to find an answer to my own question, and discovered that the microstructure of the feathers causes the optical interference. I see that it must be that, in principle, but I can't quite visualise how it actually works.

I've been hearing chestnuts hitting the roof, so gotta go! Gotta catch them all!

"Chestnuts, chestnuts, chestnuts. Oh yeah.

I can hear the chestnuts fall,
I can hear the chestnuts fall,
I can hear the chestnuts fall,
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah."

Leopards. Chestnuts. Makes no difference to this multisubjectivorous songwriting team.

[owlice]

"Chestnuts, chestnuts, chestnuts. Oh yeah.

I can hear the chestnuts fall,
I can hear the chestnuts fall,
I can hear the chestnuts fall,
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah."

Leopards. Chestnuts. Makes no difference to this multisubjectivorous songwriting team.

"That is where the bananas peel,
That is where the bananas peel,
That is where the bananas peel,
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah."

[Karl Henning]

I'm quietly trying to figure out how this could be so ... sharply focused? Tell me sometime?

I had great trouble as a youngster trying to understand the polarisation between classical music ('real music') and rock and roll ('not proper music at all'). Both seemed to me to be essential to my musical soul, but with this difference: that the ability to play a guitar and sing a bit (only a bit) was a ticket to success for any otherwise-bewildered teenager. Just as it is for birds, I guess. (Thread duty)

Recently I heard Robert Fripp in a video on YouTube answering Darryl Hall's query about musical influences (the core thesis, for me was Music is One):
... then at 13 I was getting into traditional jazz, then about 15, getting into Parker, Parker With Strings. I loved the Parker With Strings album, phenomenal [...] I had no idea how anyone could be that good [...] about 20, Hendrix and Sgt Pepper and Bartók string quartets and Stravinsky, and my great epiphany was, I was hearing all these different kinds of music, but for me they were one Music. There was no difference. It was like you have lots of different musicians speaking different dialects, but the Music is One and this was my epiphany. And I was just about to go to University to take the green estate management to take over my father's real estate firm and coming back from the Majestic Hotel one night, "A Day in the Life." I didn't know who it was and it came on the radio and suddenly at the end there's this piano chord and ... and then I couldn't go on to University in Real Estate. It had to change, and so I said to my mother and father, "Look...." So then I went on to London to unemployment and ignominy.

[Elgarian Redux]

"That is where the bananas peel,
That is where the bananas peel,
That is where the bananas peel,
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah."

Yes. You see, this is where the lyrical genius of our songwriting resides, ranging from micro to macro. Your words would bring a man tumbling to the ground, where mine bring down chestnuts. Your words are silky and slippery, where mine are hard and clunky. Put them together, and we have the whole of Life covered in the lyrics.

This one will be shooting up the charts alright. Millions, Owl. Mark my words.

[Elgarian Redux]

and my great epiphany was, I was hearing all these different kinds of music, but for me they were one Music. There was no difference. It was like you have lots of different musicians speaking different dialects, but the Music is One and this was my epiphany.

Oh my! Karl, that is it!! Brilliantly engineered! Thank you!

I have always felt that there was no essential difference, for my younger self, between listening to Bobby Vee's 'Take good care of my baby', and Elgar's 'Introduction & Allegro'. The technical differences, as music, are of course huge, but the listening experiences were merely widely differing variations on the same theme. I assumed that there must be something wrong with the way I listened.

To see, to accept, that 'Music is One', would have been an epiphany indeed. But who was I to say so, as a youngster, when every prevailing wind blasted out the message, 'Music is NOT One'?

In later years I suppose I just gradually drifted into a 'couldn't care less anyway' attitude. I listen the way I listen and my life is enriched, and nuts to the pundits. But Karl, this quote of yours by Robert Fripp resolves what has been a lifelong dilemma. My teenage self thanks you profoundly. As does my much more ancient, but still pop-singing, Elgar-loving self.

[And as, I'm sure, does Owlice's Sentinel Lark, dancing to the delicate strains of 'Black Dog'.] (Thread duty)

[owlice]

Erm ... Can I say 'cleverly placed' without you falling about laughing? Or are you planning a full-on bananaskin-splatter assault of fake bird jargon? Blirb! Floob! Bloof! Blorf! Flurb!
(If so I shall hide under this chair.)

Wow, I did not expect this to work so well that you'd make up the fake bird jargon yourself!!
My work here might be done!

I just tried to find an answer to my own question, and discovered that the microstructure of the feathers causes the optical interference. I see that it must be that, in principle, but I can't quite visualise how it actually works.

Ah, I know what's holding you back... you're trying to visualise it; try visualizing it instead.
Imagine trying it with British spelling... ! I weep.
I kid.

Maybe this will help?

The creation of iridescence, however, depends on another strategy. Instead of simply filling the feather with pigment, iridescent feathers have specialized microscopic structures that reflect light in a more impressive manner. The secret lies in stacking layers of melanosomes and interspersing tiny air pockets, according to Audubon. Essentially, the feather acts as a prism.

"The amazing thing about iridescence is that it's totally structural, like an oil slick; from some perspectives, the feathers are black, and from others, they are, well, iridescent," said Daniela Monk, WSU professor of ornithology.

The air pockets scatter light while the melanin absorbs certain wavelengths, reflecting a select range of them. This produces a single, vivid color, like the blue of a Steller's jay. Because these structures do not rely on pigment, they appear brown if viewed from the underside. Their reflective properties only work in one direction.

Hummingbird feathers produce a rainbow of hues. Their melanosomes are pancake-shaped; instead of consistent air pockets, hummingbird feathers have scattered ones, according to Audubon.

These filter light into a variety of different wavelengths, depending on the angle from which they are viewed. This is why the color of a hummingbird's gorget, or throat feathers, shifts and morphs as it zooms past.

Source: https://dailyevergreen.com/125133/research-research-2/the-science-of-shimmer-irediscence-in-bird-feathers/

The whole article is worth reading.

Iridescence...  not just for hummingbirds/sunbirds!


Wood Duck (Maryland)


Somewhat fuzzy Common Grackle (Minnesota)


Common Grackle, non-shiny mode (Michigan)


Common Grackle, Halloween edition (Florida)

[owlice]

Stellar's Jay was mentioned in the article; here's (a slightly fuzzy) one with its iridescent lightning bolt eyebrows lit up; the bird's feathers are also showing one-way blue from iridescence:

Stellar's Jay (British Columbia)

[Elgarian Redux]

Wow, I did not expect this to work so well that you'd make up the fake bird jargon yourself!!
My work here might be done!

Blurf! Florb! Boolf! Borf! Flurf!

Ah, I know what's holding you back... you're trying to visualise it; try visualizing it instead.

Halfway across the Atlantic, some zeds change to esses, so your explanation won't work over here. So if I type in 'bussard', you'll read it as 'buzzard'. (Did that work?)

Maybe this will help?Source: https://dailyevergreen.com/125133/research-research-2/the-science-of-shimmer-irediscence-in-bird-feathers/

The whole article is worth reading.

Iridescence...  not just for hummingbirds/sunbirds!

Thanks. So it's not dispersion (a la prism, or rainbow) and it is interference, as I thought. So there are these special tiny structures in the feathers, and some light bounces of their tops (A), and some bounces off their bottoms (B), and when A and B recombine after the reflection certain colours are reinforced and others cancel out. It's basically the same as the way we see colours on an oil slick, but a lot more difficult to work out in detail. That's enough for me, I think - and I don't suppose the hummingbirds care much about the theory.

Wood Duck (Maryland)


Somewhat fuzzy Common Grackle (Minnesota)


Common Grackle, non-shiny mode (Michigan)


Common Grackle, Halloween edition (Florida)

Excellent illustrations all, of iridescence and non-iridescence. Especially that last one. Very scary. Thank you.

[Elgarian Redux]

The weather here is very wet and very windy. We chanced a walk in the hills in a dry patch and got soaked while we were walking back. Here's the report (thread duty).
Birds seen: 0
Butterflies seen: 0
Big slugs seen: 1
Miserable sheep seen huddling together: Quite a few.

[Karl Henning]

The weather here is very wet and very windy. We chanced a walk in the hills in a dry patch and got soaked while we were walking back. Here's the report (thread duty).
Birds seen: 0
Butterflies seen: 0
Big slugs seen: 1
Miserable sheep seen huddling together: Quite a few.

Some sheep are unto suffering born. 

[Elgarian Redux]

Some sheep are unto suffering born.

Some sheep are unto suffering born.
They huddle in the rain.
But when they see the sun come out,
They're jolly, once again.

(I thought I'd give it a happy ending. )

[Karl Henning]

Some sheep are unto suffering born.
They huddle in the rain.
But when they see the sun come out,
They're jolly, once again.

(I thought I'd give it a happy ending. )

The sheep of the Nation are grateful!

[Elgarian Redux]

The sheep of the Nation are grateful!

We are very sheep welfare-conscious, here on GMG.
It is the right spirit. I like to see it. [As PG Wodehouse's Psmith would say.]

I am trying to remember, but I don't think Psmith ever had anything significant to say about birds. [thread duty]