Sunday, December 09, 2007

Cara Cara - Wara Wara

The names for this bird remind me of the po tay toe - po tah toe song. By any name, these are impressive birds.
During the hot and windy spring/summer months, I often see them soaring on thermals and on wind pressure waves associated with some of the ridges and valleys in Washington Park. One bird, soaring near Yuwa Pass, shot up vertically like he was on an invisible elevator. I definitely was suffering from wing envy that day.
During the cloudy and windless fall months, I usually see these birds hanging out on the ground.

I saw four last week as I cycled through the park. Three of them scampered into the undergrowth when they saw me, but this one flew up onto a nearby cactus. He really has two legs, but spent a lot of time perched on only one.

I saw five Cara Cara yesterday. One was flying and four were hanging out on the ground.
Here is a 100% crop from the first picture.
This is a 100% crop of another image.
Some flamingos performed for me too. A couple were so nice as to fly right past me while traveling from one pond to another. I'll post flying flamingo pix sometime soon. I like the contrasting colors in this picture.

I also saw a bull and a few cows in the park last week, in the same area that I saw them once before. But no bovine pictures in the blog. I didn't stop to dig out the camera from my backpack, 'cause I wasn't sure if I could pedal as fast as the bull could run, if he turned out to be camera shy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice pics. I'm in Curacao and I shot some similar pictures. Your camera has some nice resolution. I was able to walk up to 15 feet from my wara wara (there was a group of three and two flew in the process) and you still have better resolution.