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This brought back childhood memories when we had a martin house in our backyard. The birds liked to sit outside their nests and watch us play below. These were watching me stand below and take photos of them.
Purple Martins (Progne subis)
Garland, Tx
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
This is what House Sparrows do! And Mrs. Martin is not one bit happy about it!
Female Purple Martin in flight with insect prey inbeak against gray sky
A female also paused long enough to pose. Easy with the two shots right after each other to tell the gender difference. Could not have asked for more cooperative birds.
Female Purple Martin (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
A lot of purple martins were very busy gathering mud for their nests. Both males and females were working on this. A handsome male paused and posed right below me. So nice that the light was cooperating to show off that deep color that gives the name.
Male Purple Martin (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
There were several purple martins gathering mud on the spillway for nests. One female landed right below me. She leaned over and grabbed what looked like a worm in the mud.
Female Purple Martin (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
She went back to the less watery mud area and got a bit more in her beak. Right after this shot she took off quickly to use the mud on her nest. There were several purple martins all doing the same thing on the spillway.
Female Purple Martin (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
It turned out to just be a blade of grass. She discarded it after this shot.
Female Purple Martin (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
She flew over to an area of mud that was wetter with some standing water. She scooped up a ball of mud which you can see in her beak here. Purple martins use mud to plaster together the other nesting materials in their nest such as grass, plant stems & twigs.
Female Purple Martin (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
I thought I was seeing barn or cliff swallows gathering mud on the spillway but it turned out to be Purple Martins. It was my first time to see them getting mud for nesting. This female paused long enough for me to get a shot. There were about 10 of them and they would swoop down, scoop up some mud and swoop off before I could focus on them.
Female Purple Martin (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
Have I mentioned that purple martins are highly entertaining? They were all over the place and having such a good time socializing that they were totally ignoring me and my camera beneath them.
Purple Martins (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
Two female purple martins laugh at a third female who just made a very awkward landing on a windy morning.
Female Purple Martins (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
These two female purple martins were sitting on the wire chatting up a storm about everything going on below and around them. Reminds me of some gals I know.
Female Purple Martins (Progne subis)
My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
-Maya Angelou, the poet memoirist.
They say lasting memory cannot be formed without emotional arousal. To think, we hardly remember nice strangers who hold the door for us or offer us their seat in a crowded bus. But we remember the stranger in vivid details who, by one or more means, gives us a scare. Fear is a stronger emotional response than gratitude and hence the scary memory gets etched deeper. Deeper, stronger memories have one thing in common: they rise from events that evoke strong emotional arousals. Nerds believe that such arousal ropes in certain parts of the brain into the fray (like, amygdala) that are master consolidators of memory. Thus, the strength of emotional arousal following an event correlates directly with the strength of the subsequent memory for that incident.
It is thus no surprise that I will never forget you. In your presence, my emotions have raged over me like feral horses. These storming emotions have clipped the wings… wings of your memories in me. They are not going anywhere. Therefore, neither are you.
But that is only half the circle.
While emotional arousal facilitates formation of lasting memory, memories that last often arouse deep emotions on cloudy days. On such dimly lit days, I feel you. Your eyes, your smile, your smell… they rampage all over me all over again. Caught in this unending circle of wingless memories and my ruthless emotions, I melt and end up being wingless myself... one fantastic way to remain obstinately yours.
Member of the Flickr Bird Brigade
Activists for birds and wildlife
PS: Shooting this image was fun. I tried out the 1.4X converter with my 400mm lens and ended up losing the autofocus. Using lasting memories of manual focusing from years ago I focussed the handheld heavyweight lens with my own hand. Yay! Wait... don't give me any credit... there are all those out-of-focus images also that remind me I am no magician.
