Sunday, December 11, 2011

Blue-capped Waxbill

BLUE-CAPPED WAXBILL (URAEGINTHUS CYANCEPHALUS), SKOKIE, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 10, 2011

Pentax K-5
Sigma 17-70 DC at 70mm
1/200 sec. f7.1
ISO 3200

Another exotic African bird found in the Alden rehab center's aviary, this one is also known as a subspecies of the Cordon Bleu waxbill. It's popular among breeders but takes some work to keep reproductively happy, since it likes termites more than any other food. And you know what happens when termites get loose in the house.

2 comments:

MelissaH said...

Wow, you're making the most of your proximity to the aviary. Once you're sprung loose, will you be tempted to go back and visit your feathered friends, or are you just trying to get enough raw material to keep you going for a while?

Henry Kisor said...

Well, I doubt that I'll want to come back to this bed of pain, fancy as it might be. But it's given me a new idea: to hunt out the aviaries in the Chicago area and go there to photograph. Most spectacular bird photographs are taken in aviaries, not in the wild, which sounds a little like cheating -- but one takes one's subjects where one finds them.