Friday, July 16, 2010

Flaming Friday: Preening


It’s always fun to watch birds preen, partly because they get into such interesting and/or ridiculous positions in order to do it. Flamingos are especially fun to watch because they are to some degree intrinsically ridiculous—but also because their feathers are so many different, lovely shades of pink, and preening tends to reveal all of those shades.






[one of the first rules of preening is that you should do it even when those around you are fighting. (The first rule of preening is that you don't talk about preening.)]


[another rule of preening is that you can never start too young.]

To preen a little myself, my photo of flamingos billing at each other did get chosen as one of the Zoo shots for the Washington, DC “Schmap”—although, since it’s in there with about eight billion other (generally very good) images, it’s perhaps not the most prominently displayed picture ever. But I’m not complaining: today the Schmap, tomorrow…!

1 comment:

Anca said...

I'm amazed by this shot! I never knew flamingos' underwings were black. What elegance!

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