I was on the phone with Jess this morning when I happened to look out the window, and there were blackbirds everywhere! They were flying around and in the trees - thousands of them. Then all at once it was like I was in the middle of a blackbird cloud! They were just thick flying past the house on both sides. The photographer in me made me get off the phone and grab the iPad, hoping for a video of the "cloud", but they were gone too fast. So I grabbed the DSLR, snapped on the zoom lens, put on a winter coat and headed out the door.
These first two shots were taken from by the house, out across our bean field to the southwest. I wanted to make sure I got some kind of shot before they got away.
The birds kept heading west, so I ran out past the cattle shed to try and get some closer shots. They were very thick in the trees back there, too.
They were up and down - in the air and on the ground, and back up in the air again, and boy were they noisy!
As I was culling my 100 photos(!) later, I noticed there were a few red-winged blackbirds in the flock, too. I cropped this next photo so hopefully you can see some. I also uploaded everything in quite a large size, so click on any pic to see it bigger.
I cropped this next photo to show how some of the birds looked like round dots as they happened to have their wings tucked in at the split second I snapped the shutter. Then, after cropping, I noticed that there's another bird in there. Click on the pic to enlarge it... you'll see it just slightly above and to the right of center. What is it - a duck?
Update: Grandpa says it's not a duck but more likely some kind of a hawk who is out to choose one of those blackbirds for his lunch!
Gradually they kept getting farther and farther away. I thought this next shot of them against the wind towers was kinda cool.
So that was my adventure for the day. I went back in and called Jess back and we finished our conversation!
7 comments:
Spectacular! Wish I could have seen them! Thanks for sharing what's happening where you live! As a city person I appreciate seeing country stuff!
Audrey
I love the "dots" and the red-wings. Really cool!
Thanks, ladies! I'm happy to show you city peoples the country life... when I get around to it. ;)
Wow! It reminds me of all the snow geese we saw in Quebec in May. Crazy! We never have that many birds passing through Santa Clara county CA.
I think your husband is right, it looks like a hawk to me. Luckily we have hawks in our neighborhood, so while I'm no birder, those I can sometimes identify!
Thanks, Caroline, for the confirmation on the hawk. He should've gotten a pretty good meal there. ;)
It must have been impressive (and a litle eerie) to be surrounded by so many birds. Great shots! :)
Thank you, Geneviève. Yes, it was quite impressive, especially when they were going past the window! Eerie, too! :)
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