The grackles are courting

 

©voyager, all rights reserved

She lands first. Then he, about a foot away.

He looks at her sideways and puffs himself up. She looks at him sideways and hops away.

He hops to her again and raises his beak to the sky while glancing at her sideways. She raises her beak too and also glances at him sideways.

They repeat the throat display with lots of sideways glances. Once. Twice. Then she hops away again.

He hop follows her and puffs himself up again. One more throat display and then suddenly they fly away, she first and he hot on her tail.

Enter the next pair (or the same pair…it’s hard to tell) and repeat.

This has been going on all day and I can hardly tear myself away from the window. My back fence is definitely a hot pick-up place for grackles this year. I can hardly wait to see all the babies. (photos taken by spy cam through the bedroom window)

L Is For Lichen and Líquen.

Lichen. Líquen.

Only slightly different spellings in English and Portuguese to refer to this fascinating symbiotic relationship between fungi and photosynthetic microorganisms (cyanobacteria or algae). As far as I was able to determine, this moss-like lichen belongs to the genus Cladonia.

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© Nightjar, all rights reserved.

K Is For Keyhole.

Keyhole.

This is quite possibly be the only non-nature photo you are going to see for this round, but it was the one I immediately thought of for the letter K. It was taken last year as part of a larger project that I did for the local amateur theatre group. No, I have no talent whatsoever for theatre, but they apparently thought I could help them with the photography part and invited me. I was completely out of my element, but I think in the end they were happy with the result and it was lots of fun to work with them!

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© Nightjar, all rights reserved.