Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I didn't realize birds could do this

I suppose most animals do this but I had not thought about it before until I was sorting pictures this morning.  On Friday, I had actually gone out and spent a couple of hours just shooting...

BAGMAN:  "Finally!  I was wondering when you would break your addiction to your archive and finally try to shoot something new!"

...and I went over to Magnolia Cemetary thinking that I might use "Cemetaries" as my Friday Shootout Favorites this week.  Not that cemetaries are my favorite, but I had left a meeting early and...

BUTLER: "Your meeting was at a cemetary?"

Near a cemetary.  Anyhow, the sun was nice, it wasn't too cold, I didn't want to go straight home so I thought I'd see if I still remembered how to use the camera.  

Anyhow, Magnolia Cemetary is an old historic cemetary near a wetlands and there was plentiful wildlife in addition to the expectedly plentiful nolife.   Among some other birds, I was stalking this white heron.


And when I was going through and cropping shots, I realized that I had clearly irritated the poor thing enough to raise the hackles on its neck.  Do birds have hackles?   Whatever the word, the two details below are of the same bird. 


At first I thought it was the wind, but it was a very calm day.  At least I think it was.  I thought only cats and dogs did this. 

15 comments:

  1. must have had a nest close by - didn't know they did this but makes sense that they would have a defense / protection posture Good job

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  2. How observant of you! Now, about the cemeteries...

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  3. Clearly you "ruffled its feathers"... =)

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  4. Snakes do it. (They don't have hackles but their 'neck' gets funny stiff.) This might be nesting season as the hawks down in Florida were beginning their mating. I have returned to muddy snow and am so relieved!

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  5. I wonder if it is irritation or a self-protective measure (making itself appear larger) arising from fear. Great that you captured those two shots for comparison.

    There's a lot more in cemetaries than dead people!

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  6. Wow! She got all bristled up, you sure ruffled her feathers, I once drove from Saluda N.C. to Charlston. I had some fun people stay at the
    Inn and they ask me to come see Charlston. It is beautiful. In the other post, MAN you are all legs..

    Have a good week, keep clicking, yvonne

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  7. Now that you've pointed it out I realize I've seen other birds do something similar.

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  8. He's a gorgeous thing. Nice closeups of his head and neck.

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  9. Those are great pictures. I am sure they do have coping mechanisms for safety. Probably did have a nest of babies near by. Better be careful out there. I was trying to take pictures of some hay bales back on someones farm the other day and found a couple of teens parked in the storage area.I don't know who was more surprised them or me.
    QMM

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  10. Are you kidding me? That is so funny...you had him crazed....

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  11. When I've seen birds look like that I assumed it was just their feather arrangement. But when the same bird looks smooth other times, clearly that isn't the case. I'm guessing there's some of both around. You either got pretty close or your lens is good, that's great.

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  12. Cool, I have never gotten a close up of these beauties so I guess that is why I never saw their raised "hackles" either.

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  13. You ruffled his little feathers!

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  14. We have a little robin that often visits us and it puffs its feathers up when other bi9rds try to get near whatever it's eating. It's too cute!

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