Tūī is my favourite native bird of New Zealand. From October on until mid January, they frequent my house and entertain me and Arwen with beautiful songs and acrobatic flying. 
On cloudy days their feathers look just dull black with tinge of green. But in the sun, the feathers change colour at a slightest change of light or angle you look at them.
This faculty of appearing to change colour with light condition is termed iridescence, which I reckon as fashionable as it gets. 😎
I've chosen the best Tūī shots of October and uploaded to a brand new album, Locals and Visitors. I don't normally do this, but, for this series, I've chosen to upload the full size images, for you to try seeing them up close and personal. 😉
Beautiful brown tone on shoulders in this light 🙂
Nice album, MM. An interesting exercise, too … capturing the iridescence. It almost requires motion, but you've managed it with stills.
Cheers, dW. I also want to capture the subtle tinge of green under cloudy sky, but so far not having much success. In terms of skills required to capture iridescence, I'd say all you'd need is a lounge facing a big flowring shrub, patience & preparedness to take many many shots. 😀
BTW guys, try seeing the full size pic, and check out what you can see in the reflection on their eyes. 😀 Some are amazingly detailed, although distorted. 😉
Thank you, Sami. I didn't know how fluffy those brown feathers look until I acquired the big 300mm lens & started shooting with it. It was a well worth purchase 🙂
:yes: On that picture the reflection is quite clear :up:
Like this :D(Cropped from the original photo of http://files.myopera.com/mimi_s_mum/albums/12952072/20121016_7844.jpg & enlarged x3)I'm a sucker for the details that let my imagination fly freely. 😉
Not sure what you mean :confused: On some pics I can see some white bright spot: sun or your house? 😀
That one was particularly sharp. You can also see my roof is painted pale green, some puffs of grey clouds in sky and South side neighbour house has a chimney sticking above roof. 😉
Originally posted by mimi_s_mum:
😆 That is because you know what was there behind your back. Someone who does not know the landscape, it is just a blurry reflection :p
Originally posted by serola:
It may be so. But it's fun using your imagination. Point me to something similar and I'll try what I can conjure up. 😉
Here http://files.myopera.com/serola/albums/10436842/20120526a.JPG 🙂
Thanks, and good night MM 🙂
😆 Isn't imagination fun? Thanks for the fun exercise. I had some good chuckles while at it. 😀 Almost time to get ready for bed. Have a good day, Sami. TTFN
:lol:That is a reflection of our kitchen. So, no posters or shop signs 😀 And we have only one dog. But window and chairs there are alright.
😀
Would be nice if we could see in UV – some of our local black birds iridescent there …
Originally posted by QuHno:
Have your eye-lenses replaced, as in cataract surgery. The replacement (plastic) lenses are transparent to UV, which your retina can perceive. Be careful, though … UV is highly actinic. Sunburned retinas is no damned tea in the park with the queen.
tried that (not really), didn't help me growing UV sensitive cone cells 😆
Originally posted by QuHno:
Probably still visible to their peers and prospective mates. Since you, a human, knows about it, I presume someone took pictures of them in a UV sensitive medium? I wonder what those pics look like ;)Thanks for visiting my site, QuHno :happy:
Yes, some birds indeed have a tetrachromatic view, they can see in the narrow UV spectrum with their fourth kind of cones and yes, someone took images in UV and transposed them to our spectrum but I don't find them again :|edit:I didn't find it but during the search I found some other interesting things, e.g. some owls seem to florescent under UV light: http://www.ojibway.ca/oct07.htm
Originally posted by QuHno:
That is very very cool. Thanks :yes: 😎
Isn't that a queer sort of thing! Handy, though.