Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Barn Swallow, Canon Rebel XT, Hirundo rustica, Huntley Meadows Park, juvenile swallow, Sigma 135-400mm telephoto zoom lens, swallow, Tachycineta bicolor, Tree Swallow on June 7, 2013|
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What happened to this swallow to cause it to be so drab looking? That was my first thought when I looked at these images.
The bird was perched at a location where I had previously seen a lot of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica), but it looked more like a Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor). However, all of the Tree Swallows that I have seen before have been a shiny bluish-green in color. Was this a different kind of sparrow?
It turns out that the answer to my mini-mystery is quite simple—juvenile Tree Sparrows are not the same color as the adults. I guess that I had been assuming that the young Tree Sparrows would be miniature versions of their parents.
The little swallow seemed quite content to pose for me and allowed me to get profile shots and head-on shots without any instructions. Perhaps a modeling career is in its future.
Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
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Mike Powell 