Struting Feathers
My husband Rich and I took a drive and ended up at a small zoo in Bordentown, NJ. Luckily I had my camera with me as suddenly a male peacock decided to strut its feathers to impress a female.
I was fortunate as in addition to having my camera, I had good lighting. I apologize for the copyright notice, it is distracting, but sadly too many people help themselves and I don’t want another situation where something ends up on coffee mugs.
Click the More link to see the rest of the photos …
This is the female being woo’ed.
And like many females, she watched as the male strutted, shook it feathers, and did everything possible to win her attention.
The male is quite beautiful, and he often doesn’t look real.
From the back he is just as attractive, albeit less colorful.
I have several others (okay, I’ve about 60 of ’em), many that I happy with (and, who knows, maybe will make it into a quilt).
While I was busy photographing the peacocks, I noticed Rich was busy feeding monkeys, camels, wolves, and other animals. Here he is with some happy wolves. Gorgeous animals!
May 24th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Isn’t he beautiful. What stunning photos. Wow, wow, wow.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
OMG you got an amazing series of photos there !
Beautiful!
May 25th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Stunning photos! I love the noise they make also when they vibrate/rustle their tails; sounds like a waterfall.
May 25th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Fabulous color and detail. What camera was used? Thanks for sharing. Cathy
May 25th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Thanks for all of the kind words!
Stacy, yes, the sound is amazing. I got such a kick out of it. For years I’ve seen peacocks at various places, but never had the chance to photograph one with its feathers spread apart. Either they were aways closed or when open there were a zillion people around.
Cathy, I used a Nikon D80 with a 18-200 DX lens.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Gloria, Your photographs are exquisite. I read with interest your comments on photoshop and have kept them for reference.
Thank you so much for being so helpful and look forward to a
peacock quilt.
May 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Wow! Those are glorious photos of the male peacock.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Fabulous photos! Any of these would make an outstanding quilt, even the one take of the peacock from the back. It could be the base of an abstract piece.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:17 am
These are great, Gloria! I love my Nikon! Wonderful job!
May 25th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
abfab – the colors are so brilliant, thanks for sharing
May 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Great pictures! I recently watched a Tom turkey trying to woo a couple hens in my back yard. He showed and strutted, and they just walked away. He followed them down the hill and displayed again with no success. It was rather sad to watch him fold up his feathers and walk away in the opposite direction. I took some pictures, but none of them were a fraction as good as these are! Wonderful!
May 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Thanks for all of the kind comments! :)
I was kidding Rich that he should be strutting his tail feathers for me, but I just got one of those ‘yeah, right’ looks and he continued feeding the wolves!
May 25th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Gloria,
Amazing photos but even more amazing is your artistic eye in creating the images!
May 25th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
OMG- how stunning is that!!! The colors are just gorgeous – but then, I’m a color freak, as you know – lol. Also loved the pics of your dh feeding the wolves.
And you;ve got a Nikon D80 -WOW! I keep dropping hints that camera model will be my NEXT camera for sure…my new Canon is okay; but I have about 3-4 Nikon film cameras and I’ve always been partial to Nikon.
May 26th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Wow!
He really impressed THIS female.
Marvelous photos.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Thanks for sharing your fantastic photos.
Peacocks are so beautiful.
My neighbor has some peacocks fo pets—-periodically they take a walk in my yard. You have motivated me to get my
camera out.
By the way–I do have a picture my DH took of a fox, a raccoon an a possoum all eating together–just off my porch.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Wow! Really incredible pictures! The color is astounding.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Thanks Norma! :)
September 10th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Gloria,
OMG what a glorious bird and what fabulous pics. WOW.
Are those arctic wolves? I have Atka, an arctic wolf “ambassador” as my screen saver – support and check out http://www.nywolf.org
Katharina
September 10th, 2009 at 11:44 am
I’m not sure what kind of wolves, only that they were just beautiful animals! Thanks for the link!