fauna – Page 24 – Black and White

Ardea herodias herodias

heron, Rappahannock River
The Great Blue Heron was one of the many species originally described by Carolus Linnaeus in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae.–Wikipedia
(herons and the ospreys do not socialize)

Pandion haliaetus

The Osprey is unusual in that it is a single species that occurs nearly worldwide.–Wikipedia

(this is the way I keep house)

iso water

water

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. — I've been putting water out for the birds in a stainless steel dog bowl. Holds about a quart. The birds are thirsty. They've been drawing the bowl down daily. The weather is hot and dry. Birds walking around with their beaks open. Birds that normally don't tolerate each other, standing side by side, drinking.

feeding/eating

Acer saccharinum

robin on her nest during a thunderstorm — We had a severe thunderstorm in Charlottesville last Thursday. It snapped power poles, uprooted trees.
The robin made this nest in a 120 year old silver maple. The dread silver maple.
Outlawed by municipalities around the country. Experts say it is a weak wooded, weedy, infrastructure trashing tree.
Sure enough, this tree lost limbs, is that weak wooded or smart?
Instead of hanging onto all its limbs and blowing over in one beautiful piece,
it dropped a few limbs and lived.
Sister robin protecting those youngsters. Mommas all right.

lightning bugs

fireflies in a tree at night. — 10 seconds, Lampyridae display. They are hanging out in a quercus palustris.
They don't hang out in the tulip tree to the right.
This chemically-produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale red — wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanometers. Most fireflies are quite distasteful and sometimes poisonous to vertebrate predators.--Wikipedia

Wikipedia

day of nest

robin sitting on nest — Turdus migratorius, American Robin, sitting on her nest. Long day, June 21, 2010, 0519 hrs

robin egg blue

a robin's egg and some old govt correspondence
Michael Carrithers commented that b&w photos of rust are not entirely informative. I am taking his words as an invitation.
Despite my monochromatic preference (“friends don’t let friends shoot colour”), I am falling off the wagon for a few days, into the chaos and mess, 390 to 750 nanometers.
Blue egg of Robin largely meaningless in b&w would be.

Equus ferus caballus, awake

Horses’ anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight instinct. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down.–Wikipedia