Wednesday 27 May 2015

Day 147 2015: The ugly duckling story...

Day 147: ...and the 'black white-bird'

Every day brings something new. Just when you think everything is, well, kind of settled. Knowing today would be a later night in the office, I headed out for a bit of a walk by the lake in the afternoon. With the camera. Of course. 

The egret was there, and allowed a reasonable close-up too. And then took flight. The surface of the water was like a mirror at times, rippled at others. And then along came the swan. The black swan. One half of the pair. 

Egret elegance

On reflection

Black swan elegance

The Black Swan. The swan of fairy stories. The swan of the ugly duckling story. There is one other black swan story I like telling too. Early on in my language studies I learnt the Japanese word for swan was 'hakucho' (白鳥), literally, white bird. Yes, white. So one day, I asked what is a 'black swan' then? It stumps many people. I had to explain it was a black 'white-bird'. Anyway, turns out the characters 'black-bird' can be put together for the 'unique Australian bird'. Still, it made for some fun philosophical discussions in the mean time. 

What I learnt today about black swans is that they do have white feathers...


Exposed: white feathers

...and they can be quite ruffled too.
Ruffled, for effect

And because I wanted to experiment with the 18mm, one long shot of the east as the sun set in the west on another day. 

Wide angle clouds

There's always something new. 

[Camera : Canon EOS 60D, 75-300mm, 18-55mm, 4.37pm-5.13pm (and 75 pics...)]