I’ll Believe It All

Band-tailed Pigeon on a wire

 

Two birds on a wire
One tries to fly away
And the other watches him close from that wire
He says he wants to as well
But he is a liar

Regina Spektor, “Two Birds”

 

As I was driving home a few days ago, I saw a small group of Band-tailed Pigeon (Columba fasciata) flying by and a couple landed on the wires paralleling the road. These are some good-sized birds and I stopped the truck to sit and watch their impossible teetering — tipping wildly back and forth, but somehow managing to stay upright. I did a balancing act of my own and leaned waaaaay out the car window to take some backlit images of these two. The trick was trying to time the shots for the few seconds when its namesake tail would be illuminated by the Sun’s rays.

[For those of you that don’t know who Regina Spektor is, I highly recommend that you check out her music!]

Harsi / June 15, 2011 / birds, lyrics

Comments

  1. ro - June 16, 2011 @ 6:38 am

    I like my doves they way too, skewered! Kidding, just kidding.. I wouldn’t trust them either, just as the song indicates though you captured them quite nicely.

    Reply
  2. Harsi - June 16, 2011 @ 9:04 am

    Well, to their credit Ro, at least I don’t see Band-taileds sitting smack dab in the middle of the road. The same cannot be said for their (ahem) seemingly less bright cousins the Mourning Doves. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, funny lady. xo

    Reply
  3. Chris - June 16, 2011 @ 7:25 pm

    I like how the pigeon on the right has his mouth slightly ajar, as if he’s trying to tell us something. Not familiar with that particular song of hers; only have the album “Begin to hope” but just checked wikipedia (ah, good old wikipedia) and her discography is bigger than I thought it was. Reccomendation for a second album? 🙂

    Reply
  4. Harsi - June 16, 2011 @ 7:38 pm

    Ha! I know, Chris… Whenever I get pics where the animals mouth is open, I always have the urge to take it into Photoshop and add a cartoon speech/thought bubble with some text. Oh, the things I do to amuse myself. 🙂 Well, I think it’s hard to go wrong buying any of Regina’s stuff, but if you’re asking me to narrow it down to one choice for your next purchase… I’d probably go with “Soviet Kitsch”. I think you’ll really dig a lot of the songs on that one. (BTW, the number of songs that she’s written is so much vaster than what has been officially released. Check out the number of titles in this list to get some idea: http://lyrics.wikia.com/Regina_Spektor A good place to listen to some awesome concert recordings is here: http://respektonline.com/shows.php

    Reply
  5. Chris - June 18, 2011 @ 2:28 pm

    Just wanted to say thanks Harsi, picked up Soviet Kitsch the other day and you were right, I’m loving it so far.. “Sailor song” might be favorite song right now. Sorry for going kind of off-topic Harsi but just had to say thanks. Hope you’ve been having a great week! 🙂

    Reply
  6. Harsi - June 18, 2011 @ 4:39 pm

    Not off-topic at all, Chris… and I’m so happy that you’re enjoying it!! Careful though, “Sailor Song” can be really catchy. (I’ve had that song stuck in my head for days at a time.) Hoping you’ve had a great week as well and are finding a bit of time to explore somewhere cool. 🙂

    Reply

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