Looking with birds

My latest exploration of avian art.

It's not "right" but I like the colours and paint effects - especially in the bottom right of the picture.

I can't recall if I posted this one. I like this.

Talking of art, Son of Bob has found his voice.

I had been standing watching him preen himself, which involved fluffing up to slightly larger than a tennis ball and running his beak down every single feather. He also seems to want to stand only on his left foot, often lifting the right into his plumage. And he often pecks at his feet.

I have never been able to watch a bird for so long, and at such close range. Maybe he is normal for a bird; but he seems very strange to me. He likes to fly very close to me, as though in a feat of daring. He will land close to me and perch close to me - but he will not eat from my hand. I watched him kill and eat a shiny beetle today - as well as numerous things too small for me to see.

The jay inspected me again. That was again an unsettling experience. The bird's intelligence has this strange combination of calculation and emotion. I mean, we are all like that - but the inspection movements have a sharp mechanistic quality, which the fear reactions are pure emotion. The large eye and incredible plumage - jays look like toys, perfect robotic replicas of birds. And then they show their true animism.

The juvenile blackbird showed me what she thought of me: I had not laid food on the box, just peanuts. She flew to the box, picked up the peanuts and dropped them over the edge, repeatedly looking back at me: "This is NOT the right food!" SoB does that too, but he can't quite lift them over the edge, just shuffles them a bit, looking at me in disgust.

Again, last night, I saw the hedgehog. She was on the "lawn" all three square feet of it and froze when I passed to put out her food. I looked at her with the red light torch. The food had gone this morning so, thankfully, I hadn't scared her too much.