The Sunday feature where we just flip through a few pictures that haven’t otherwise earned our attention this week. (Hey, it’s either this or another long essay on another bike ride. The short version: I did not fall as I did yesterday. My feet felt 80 percent better. I did 32 miles at a 15 mile per pace. It was a terrific afternoon for it.)
I wonder if the bird on the right ever gets picked on by the other birds. “Your beak is SO orange. And your PLUMAGE … ”
The cardinal came back. I slow walked to the end of the patio, about 25 yards from him and I do believe he posed for this. I took one more step out and he flew away:
Crows are incredible birds. They have memories, language, currency and some of them have a better grasp of contemporaneous socioeconomic situations than the political party of which you most disapprove. Crows hold grudges and recognize human faces. They know what boomsticks are, though they sometimes confuse them with broomsticks. And they knew a guy inside the house was taking pictures of them out in the yard. (All but two of the above are true. And I think we’ll soon discover they have a currency.)
This last shot is in the Louise Kreher Forest Ecology Preserve, an outreach program of the Auburn School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences. We walked around there a bit this evening and I can’t wait to see everything in there explode into more shades of green than crows knew exist. (Crows also have a nearly full, adaptive RGB palette perception, just 17 shades of green short of the technical 16,777,216 different possible colors of truecolor.)
OK, that’s not true. The crows know every shade of green and three the human spectrum doesn’t receive.
Anyway, I’m excited to see every possible bud on every possible tree. Spring is 15 minutes away. I can feel it. I love it:
