Colorful Creatures~

On By cindy knokeIn Birds, Conservation, HOLLER HAPPENINGS, MY PHOTOGRAPHS, Wild Life


Create their own vibrant light.

Phaninopepla, dark as midnight,

in full light, is radiant dark blue, with deep red eyes.

Male orioles, kings of beauty, rock yellow and black,

while male grosbeaks flash black, orange and white.

Mr Jay will drive our blues away,

as hummingbirds fly their own private rainbows!

Cheers to you from The Holler’s colorful creatures~

254 thoughts on “Colorful Creatures~”

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    1. Thanks so much Deborah. Very kind and most appreciated. It does take a bit of practice, if you look at my photos from several years ago, you can see they are improving with practice.

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  5. Woo-hoo! Love all the vibrant colors and fantastic photos, Cindy. As a birder I am infinitely impressed by your ability to get the colors on the phainopepla. That is not a blue jay, however, it is a scrub jay. We don’t have bluejays in California. Cheers to you and your friends at The Holler.

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    1. Yes, I identified him as a western scrub jay in the post tags, but it didn’t work with the rhyming, and the Phainopepla is rare around here and very shy, so I was just happy to get a few clicks. Happy Friday~

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  8. That Phaninopepla is a stunner. All are gorgeous. I know there are hummingbirds here, but I’ve only ever seen a rare few. Bluejays, now you’re taking! We have so many here, our baseball team is named after them. Guess what? Winter came back here. Snow, sleet, heavy winds, cold and no hummers.

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    1. Yes, I have been hearing about more snow in all sorts of places. All bird shots are taken with my old camera because it has the most zoom. Happy weekend to you and your family Peter~

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  18. Always love your photos, but am completely bowled over by THREE photos of hummingbirds. At best, I get a total blur & have been trying for years.

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    1. Hummers are particularly challenging in terms of getting clearly focused shots, so I well identify with your frustration, and have felt it many times <3 <3

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  21. The bright colours of birds are one of many reasons I love them. They have such interesting habits and movements, but the colours…!!! They are like bouquets of flowers flying around to cheer us.

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  34. I caught part of a nature documentary last night which looked at a species of hummingbird (in the tropics, I think) having a beak longer than the length of its body! It evolved that way to feed on a particularly elongated flower unreachable by other hummers. The unusually long beak makes it harder to fly or even to rest, and impossible for the bird to preen itself. These weird hummingbirds must use their feet to scratch themselves.

    Up here in the pacific northwest, scrub jays dominate over steller’s jays too. The colorful, crested steller’s get agitated whenever the scrubs come around… and, take their frustrations out on my patio plants – lol!

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    1. Yes, I kept my eyes open searching for these guys on our recent South American trip. They are fascinating aren’t they, and rare! They are called Sword Billed Hummingbirds and use their long bills to reach the nectar deep in some type of passion flower. Simply amazing!

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    1. Phainopepla’s are very rare at The Hooler. I saw one last year. So far I have seen one, two separate times this year, and managed to get about 5 shots before he disappeared. It is a big thrill each time I see him. He seems so exotic, but he is very shy!

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    1. So kind Amy. Thank you. I had to use more discipline than I have, to cut the hummingbird photos down in this post to 3, to stick to my 8 photo rule. I have some other beautiful hummingbird’s mid-air, with different color patterns.

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  53. Anonymous

    Such beautiful little creatures. Sometimes I just need to look upon God’s created species and appreciate the beauty they add to the world when my own is in such a chaotic mess. Always love looking at your photos Cindy.

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    1. Yes. Exactly the same for me. Seeing the beauty of the natural living world, that we are all a part of, helps to put our own experiences within a far bigger construct. This helps to make us feel part of something so much bigger than ourselves, and so incredibly beautiful, helping us feel better and impeling us to recognize the natural beauty we posses in ourselves. This is all very therapeutic. Hugs to you & thank you too~ <3

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  67. Thanks for the beautiful reflections from the holler! No doubt hummers are like rainbows of light and joy! And reading your intro, I’m reminded that we too create and carry our own light. Shine on Cindy!

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  82. Ah! Some of my favorites…especially the hummingbirds 🙂
    We have ‘yellow crested night herons’ nesting in trees in our back yard…and a wonderful friend took an amazing photo and framed it for us…
    Hope you are well, Cindy…sweet blessings! <3

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  93. Hello, my friend. As always … breathtaking! You must have special camera equipment to get these shots. I’m sure you’re warmer out where you are than I am at present. Hope you’re having a great week. Love, Sonali xx

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    1. Thanks so much for leaving such lovely comments and you are correct, we are now in a very hot place, The Cook Islands! Cheers to you Selina and thank you too~

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  98. Such vibrant colours and the hummers in your next post are so amazingly sharp you are a fantastic photographer Cindy. I will look forward to your Cook Island vistas.

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  100. Few things are more delicate or represent delight more than the little hummingbird, natures brilliant and shimmering fairy. thank you for the beauty you share with us Cindy.

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  102. Hey Cindy, Namaste 🙂

    Stunning photographs as is your signature style, thank you. I’m especially drawn to the Phainopepla: the ‘silky flycatchers’, so named because of their glossy plumes. They are magnificent and as I read more about them I discover they’ve ability to imitate the bird-calls of twelve other species. Quite extraordinary: I imagine these birds might understand what they are saying when speaking in a foreign tongue and if so whether they amuse themselves by shouting out random things just to cause mischief and confusion and/or incite a reaction…hence the red-eyes made so by crying with laughter at the outcome lol 🙂

    Namaste 🙂

    DN

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      1. Namaste Cindy 🙂 If only we could talk to the animals like Doctor Doolittle: especially with the birds whose lofty world-view looks down upon our own. What stories they could tell, what vision they could share.

        Thank you for beautiful photographs. Take care wherever you may be 🙂

        Namaste 🙂

        DN

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          1. 😀 …the small flag WordPress use to denote the country the reader is in spells out ‘Cook Islands’…very cool 🙂

            Hoping all is well in paradise 🙂

            Namaste 🙂

            DN

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  104. You are so good at capturing these beautiful birds. I love the humming birds. My sister brought me some praying mantis pods to eat the box bugs that cover the back of my house in the summer months and I don’t want to put them out in fear that they will eat the few humming birds I get here. It says they eat them and I don’t want that to happen so looks like I will have to put up with the bugs. 🙁 Haven’t been getting most notifications so I’m going through my reader to find what I missed. ;(

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  106. Hi there, Cindy! I am always excited to come and see your posts! I did get a chance to see the March posts. . .
    I liked how you said the sun shines for us all and the “everyday” birds you shared with us all. xo 💐
    I absolutely love your holler bird posts, especially with your sweet, rainbow colored Hummers! 😘
    Hope your Spring is beautiful and special: Like you are! ❤️❤️

    Reply

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