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~

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254 thoughts on “Colorful Creatures~”

  2. Pingback: Colorful Creatures~ – The Militant Negro™

    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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