The Colour Collaborative: March: Bird

grey chested buzzard eagle

barn owl

mallards and coot

grey chested buzzard eagle

robin

Ural owl

juvenile mute swan

northern white faced scops owl

lanner falcon

lanner falcon

Indian tawny eagle

goldcrests

Indian tawny eagle

pintails

American sea eagle

long tailed tit

Ural owl

American sea eagle

Bewick's swans

American sea eagle

In the past few years I've really started to discover birds.  What started as a few trips to our local wildfowl and wetlands place turned into a passion for my eldest son, and now we're regular visitors.  We talk to the wardens and other birdwatchers and spend hours watching and learning.  We make occasional visits to bird of prey centres as well, anywhere with birds in fact.  And little by little I've started to understand exactly what it is that enchants so many people.

There are so many amazing feats in the bird world.  The peregrine falcon who reaches 200mph in a dive.  Two hundred miles per hour.  The children are far better at knowing all of the facts than me, they give me little pieces of information about how it has special eyelids that close and how it protects its lungs from the incredible pressure.  Two hundred miles per hour.

Then there's the tiny firecrest that winters in the Mediterranean and north African regions and flies hundreds and hundreds of miles north to breed in spring.  It weighs less than a quarter of an ounce and along with the goldcrest it is the smallest bird you're like to see in Britain.

And the emperor penguin who breeds in the Antarctic winter where the temperature is -40C (-40F) with wind speeds of up to 90mph.  They make a trek of between 30 and 75 miles to the nesting site.  The female lays an egg, then the male pops it on his feet, under his warm belly roll and stands in a huddle with the other dads while the female, who is exhausted, treks back to the sea to feed.  The males shuffle round in their huddle, giving each other a turn in the warmer middle.  They keep doing that, without ever feeding, until the egg hatches.  64 days later.  When the chick hatches, the male feeds it with a little meal that it is able to regurgitate.  Then hopefully the female returns from sea to take over the feeding.  By the time the egg hatches, the male has fasted in these incredibly harsh conditions, for 115 days.

These incredible tales are maybe part of what fascinates the children about birds.  For me, that is only part of it.  I like the way they form a part of our seasons and countryside.  I find it soothing to watch them when life is all going wrong.  They carry on with their lives as they always do, a reminder to me of what is important.  So long as the birds are still singing and building nests, everything will turn out alright in the end.  Life goes on regardless.

So many different birds share our planet, of every colour and size imaginable.  Many have the most incredible colours, and of course I find them beautiful, mesmerising in their iridescent and bright rainbow plumage.  But most of all I like the more subtle colours of the birds I see around me.  Browns of every shade, and delicately patterned feathers with little striations and speckles.  A splash of orange red on the robin who watches me at the allotment, that touch of purple on a mallard's wing, the hint of pink about a long tailed tit.  When we have to hunt for the colour it becomes all the more precious.  When it blends so beautifully with nature it is soothing to the eye.

Birdwatching really is a rewarding pastime, it took me a while to understand that, but I'm happy to have got there in the end.  I have much to learn, but it's thoroughly enjoyable, if you get the chance, do give it a try.  The best way to discover how amazing these creatures are is by finding someone knowledgeable to point things out for you.  You'll probably find just such a person lurking in a hide somewhere.  In my experience, birdwatchers are both helpful and friendly.  It's a good world to join.

      Bird of prey photographs taken at the International Centre for Birds of Prey

      Other photographs taken locally

To visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below:

                       Annie at Annie Cholewa                  Gillian at Tales from a Happy House

                       Sandra at Cherry Heart                    Jennifer at Thistlebear

What is The Colour Collaborative?

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways.