Plusieurs Oiseaux des Arbres de Vie

Many Birds From The Tree of Life

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Brett Whiteley - The pink heron, 1969

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Sarah Siltala, “Wren”

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Photos: A Flamboyance of Flamingos

An appreciation of flamingos, showing them flap, feed, fly, and flock together

The collective noun to describe a gathering of flamingos is “flamboyance,” an appropriate term for these colorfully-feathered creatures. They flock together by the thousands on salt flats, lagoons, lakes, and swamps around the world, where they can filter-feed for shrimp, algae, and insects. Gathered below, a few flamingo photos, showing them flap, feed, fly, and flock together.

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Murmurations

In winter, starlings join in flocks of thousands of individuals to try to confuse the hawks that attack them, doing a mesmerizing dance.

This video is part of the Ornitografias project, a project in which Xavi Bou has been working for years, which consists in visualizing the beauty of bird flight paths.

To learn more about this project visit the web: xavibou.com

Music by Kristina Dutton

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The Beauty and Biology of Egg Color

From the Summer 2017 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. Fish do it. Frogs do it. Even insects lay eggs with color. But birds do it best. Only birds produce eggs in such a wide range of eye-pleasing shades and intricate patterns on the hard surface of their eggs. Like gems in a je

Only birds produce eggs in such a wide range of eye-pleasing shades and intricate patterns on the hard surface of their eggs.

Like gems in a jeweler’s window, they vary in base color, how shiny they are, and whether they are covered in Sanskrit-like scrawls or patterns of spots.

But, how does the color get there? What is it made of? Does it benefit the embryo? And, why are some eggs plain white?

Egg pigmentation is surprisingly complex.

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Bosch's Owls An informal analysis Copyright 2015 by Lee van Laer Hieronymus Bosch included tiny owls in most of his paintings. They are not in all the paintings; but, I believe, they have a specific significance. The owl that Bosch most consistently paints is a diminutive spotted owl. This owl is almost without a doubt the European or Eurasian pygmy owl.

The "signature" owls in Bosch paintings are generally hidden, and difficult to spot. The pygmy owl above is, unusually, one of two owls in this painting (see below.) The fact that it is partially concealed alludes, as it does in all cases, to a hidden wisdom.

Another owl that crops up in several paintings is the barn owl, another owl that would have been well familiar to rural  late Middle Ages and early Renaissance households.  Because it preys on vermin, it would also carry positive connotations:

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Hieronymus Bosch

Pygmy Owl from The Garden of Earthly Delights

Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

http://www.esotericbosch.com/owls/boschsowls.htm

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15 BIRDS and BIRD SONGS for BEGINNERS

1. Great Tit

2. Chaffinch

3. Blackbird

4. Robin

5. House Sparrow

6. Blue Tit

7. Nuthatch

8. Wren

9. Goldfinch

10. Magpie

11. Starling

12. Jay

13. Song thrush

14. Greenfinch

15. Nightingale

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Deconstructed Bird and Insect Wing Patterns by Eleanor Lutz

Artist and designer Eleanor Lutz has a special knack for science illustration. On her blog, Tabletop Whale, she recently shared this great series of admittedly non-scientific charts that deconstruct the wing patterns of birds and insects. After spreading across the web like wildfire the last few day

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The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos : The Opening Titles

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Birds During a Total Solar Eclipse

Image Credit & Copyright: Leonardo Caldas

 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190709.html?fbclid=IwAR0z6o4dW00De86i7qRBXRY_VT_QbvfY7jTN4c0NQb18QAcDrBBP2hcwdss

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In this 3-hour wildlife video, you will see amazing African birds such as little bee-eater, lilac-breasted roller, Passerine, Yellow Billed Hornbill, ostrich, vulture, Yellow-billed Stork, goose, etc.

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Carion Quintet performs "Music for the Fleeting Birds" by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946)

Dora Seres, flute Egils Upatnieks, oboe Egīls Šēfers, clarinet David M.A.P. Palmquist, horn Niels Anders Vedsten Larsen, bassoon Video production: Toms Rings www.carion.dk

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Jóhann Jóhannsson - A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder

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Haut-Relief Portraits of Animals Come Alive in Detailed Paper Sculptures by Calvin Nicholls

Canadian paper artist Calvin Nicholls (previously) continues to build striking likenesses of wildlife, featuring birds, bears, and foxes rendered in haut-relief sculpture. Despite working in monochromatic palettes of white and off-white paper, he imbues the animal portraits with a sense of livelines

A scalpel, scissors, glue and paper

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Ostrich - the Flightless Bird

The ostrich is the tallest and the heaviest of all birds.

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Henri Matisse with birds 

(via https://thegenealogyofstyle.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/passion-for-birds/)