On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This week we have Albatrossity; the title of this post says it all, doesn’t it? We also have BillinGlendale taking us on a trip to the lake. And we have a 3-part Iceland series that I’m really excited about – The Lights of Darkness – from Christopher Mathews!
Oh, and one more thing. Last year I loved seeing the photos of jackals as kids at Christmastime, so if you guys are up for that again, I would like that to be our theme for Christmas week and the week before. Is anybody up for that? Send in your Christmas photos! Um, make that your HOLIDAY photos.
The war on Christmas has begun.Not really, just trying to be more inclusive.
Albatrossity
For some time now I have been posting, in the evenings, photographs of birds from an angle that I see a lot of as the birds flee. I call this my Bird Butt Before Bedtime series, and, as they say, I have a million of ‘em! So I thought I’d share some of these with the BJ community, and Watergirl suggested that I title it Bird Butts Before Breakfast.
Here’s the first batch, more next week! In fact, this year I have created a 12-month calendar featuring Bird Butts, which can be ordered (printed on demand) from Lulu.com. It would make an excellent Christmas gift for your favorite jackal, or some other nature lover!
I also have my Birds of Flyover Country 2022 calendar on sale at that same site. This year’s edition has Harley on the cover!
It is ridiculously easy to get a photo of the butt of any wren; they cock their tails up and even seem to like to moon the photographer. Here’s a Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus), seated on its eponymous perch, from a winter day in Big Bend National Park, TX.
Our local wrens are not shy about mooning me either. Carolina Wrens (Thyrothorus ludovicianus) seem particularly adept at this.
I think I shared this photo before here at OTR, but it was a hit with my Facebook friends, so I’ve included it here again. Like wrens, ducks often present targets for the discerning photographer of butts, and dabbling ducks like this Blue-winged Teal (Spatula discors) can give you some good images.
Spotted Towhees (Pipilo maculatus) have very distinctive butts, and those white-tipped tail feathers highlight the look.
Sometimes you get lucky and can photograph multiple bird butts at once. This trio of American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis), House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus), and Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) posed briefly for me one chilly January morning.
Black-and-white Warblers (Mniotilta varia), on the other hand, usually have their butts plastered against a big tree limb, so I was really happy to see one on a smaller branch and to get this iconic shot from a rarely-seen angle!
A favorite of bird-watchers everywhere, this male Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) shows an angle that might not be considered to be his best side, but is certainly distinctive.
Hawks often give you a going-away butt shot, and generally they are still watching you to see if you might be doing something unseemly as they fly away. Here’s a young Merlin (Falco columbarius) giving me that look.
I’ll end with a couple of images of quiz birds, and provide the answers later in the comments. On both you can see field marks which, in conjunction with the habitat and the location and the time of year, should allow you to ID the bird. Size-wise, both are small birds (sparrow or warbler-sized). Here’s Quiz Bird #1.
And Quiz Bird #2.
raven
Shake a tail feather!
JeanneT
Looks like an important contribution to bird identification resources for us rank amateurs who are never in the right place at the right time!
Betty
Interesting new perspective. I won’t venture any guesses on the quiz birds.
HeartlandLiberal
I once took a bunch of pictures of birds on our upper small deck, which we use as a bird feeding platform, after drenching rain. All the birds were soaked. It made for interesting pics of birds dealing with the fact they are exposed to the elements all the time. I like your bird butt pics, by the way. Not usual to see that angle, but often, that is the angle we see as the birds are startled before we identify them.
Rob
These photos are great! I was quizzing myself on each one as I slowly scrolled down the page.
WaterGirl
That last photo looks a bit like eggs over easy, with a side of feathers.
mvr
@WaterGirl:
I guess this is what we get by way of commentary when it is before breakfast.
mvr
I like the Merlin photo a lot.
Carolina Wrens have been busy hear this morning just as things are getting light. Nice to see them again.
Thanks!
MelissaM
Ok, the last one made me laugh. That’s a great one!
Albatrossity, I ordered your calendar last year, but was frustrated at times during the year because there are no holidays and the like listed in the calendar. I think I was trying to figure out Easter (I don’t celebrate it, but other family members do.) Any way holidays or moon phases or the like could be included?
dkinPa
Went and looked at your bird butts calendar — love it! I already have my bird calendar for 2022. If you do a bird butts calendar for 2023, let us know by fall, please! (It would be nice if holidays were listed!) Guessing a waterthrush for Quiz Bird #1 — Louisiana? Prothonotary Warbler for #2?
Chat Noir
Birb bums!
WaterGirl
Harley!!!
opiejeanne
Fluffy-butts!
J R in WV
I saw quite a bit of Pileated woodpecker butt day before yesterday, when I did my weekly run to town for supplies. Screaming and looping from tree to tree ahead of me as I walked down the path to the parked car. Sounds like a dinosaur ought to sound.
Still waiting for the ID on the birb butt photos above… I’m terrible at the ID notes on birds… not a technical birdwatcher at all, just look at them and go “Awww, aren’t they cute?!?!”
Albatrossity
@MelissaM: Sorry about that. I thought that I had added the US holidays (they don’t have a setting to add phases of the moon), but maybe that didn’t stick? The Lulu website is wonky… So I will make sure that those are on the calendars this year! Thanks for the heads-up!
Albatrossity
@dkinPa: You got them both correct! LA Waterthrush and Prothonotary Warbler, for the win!
And yes, I will make sure that holidays are added to the calendars this year!
StringOnAStick
Nice photos, and a joke every serious birdwatcher or photographer understands all too well!
I recently bought a bird bath that is a chunk of columnar basalt, hexagonal in cross section and when they break them into sections longwise, you get a nice dish shape. Some people get them drilled to install a fountain, but I wanted a simple, natural birdbath. It’s still sitting on a pallet in the front yard for the landscaper to move next year, at 336 pounds I can’t easily move it though I might try rolling it closer to my office window for the entertainment of our indoor cats and myself. Every time I walk by it I see the splash marks that tell me a bird just used it, so it is getting lots more activity than the metal one in the backyard that we inherited when we bought the place.
MelissaM
@Albatrossity: You add them, I’ll put a bird butts in my cart and buy!
Albatrossity
@MelissaM: Done. The widget to add event dates to the calendars had some issues, but the preview pages and the PDFs that they sent me now have US holidays marked on the calendar!