shrugging

this blue jay’s shoulders look as if they’re shrugging. in life, blue jays don’t appear to fear anything. maybe this guy didn’t even fear death, when it arrived: “oh. it’s you, is it? i figured you’d be coming around. well, ok. whatever. let’s do this thing.”

blue jay wings

saint paul, minnesota

underbelly

i intended to talk about these lily pads as having the most beautiful underbellies i’d ever seen, in comparison to the violent underbellies of cities and crime families, and the soft white underbellies of fish and birds and some mammals. and then i got trapped in a research rabbit hole and discovered that white underbellies are features of many fish and aquatic animals that are vulnerable to predators from below. the white underbelly camouflages them against the bright sky overhead, when viewed from below. but why would the vulnerable bellies be soft? well it turns out many species used to have gastralia–basically a network of bones that protected the abdomen, the same way the chest is protected by ribs, but when birds eventually needed to fly, they had to shed weight everywhere possible, and the soft white underbelly was on the evolutionary trading block. sometimes i love my job.

lily pads

lake valentine, arden hills, minnesota

fashion sense

these bottlebrush grass stalks are blessed with beautiful posture, stick-thin figures, and compelling heads of dramatic hair. but that sash belt, with the flowing ends. darling, that is simply fabulous.

eastern bottlebrush grass

grass lake, shoreview, minnesota

roy and g but not biv

this guy tried really hard to fill in the whole rainbow spectrum. pretty hard to blame him for not managing blue, indigo and violet. he just didn’t have the tools.

sumac leaves in fall transition colors

lake valentine, arden hills, minnesota

interior design

there is nothing particularly noteworthy about this nest except that it was in fact this exact rusty red color throughout. i have not altered the color in any way in the course of post-processing. which means that some sparrow chose to make its nest by choosing only grasses of this particular russet hue. it must have been a bird that did not need things to be perfect (there are a good number of loose strands), but that had certain opinions about the importance of palette when it came to decorating her home. a kindred spirit, in other words.

small (probably sparrow) nest found on the ground after a storm

minneapolis, minnesota