Street Art: Bordeaux

 


Birding in Paris is a challenge. There are not a lot of wild spaces accessible by transit, and there are people everywhere in the green spaces in town.

That said, by keeping a pair of 8 x 25 bins in my pocket, making a few dedicated forays to bigger parks at the edge of town, and getting outside of Paris on side trips, I've been able add 67 species to my life list since September 2022. One of my favorites is the Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), spotted in l'Île aux Cygnes in my neighborhood and La Palu nature preserve in Saintes. As an aside, birders should not be allowed to give birds their non-scientific names. This kingfisher might be common in terms of range, but it is definitely uncommon in terms of beauty. The orange and teal blue colors seems impossibly vivid, even without binoculars.

I don't have the patience or equipment to photograph the birds I see, so I'm letting this anonymous street artist represent the species. A great rendering of an uncommonly beautiful common bird.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sugar Gets Around: Jardin du Luxembourg

Image
It wasn't long after we hit town in September that we started looking for neighborhoods with good spaces to walk dogs. Turns out, Paris parks are pretty dog-unfriendly. One exception is the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th Arrondissement. Marie de Medici, widow of Henri IV and mother of Louis XIII, added these gardens to her Palais du Luxembourg in 1612--part of which is now given over to dogs and their walkers (tourists and other Parisiens appear to be welcome as well). Le Palais du Luxembourg. Fit for a dog. Disturbingly, like at Ranelagh , the garden depicts yet another act of classical savagery. At la fontaine Médicis, a sculpture shows the giant cyclops Polyphemus moments before descending on lovers Acis and Galatea and crushing the former with a rock. Polyphemus, hanging junk and all, moments before his jealous rampage. Not fit for a dog. It's actually a grand and beautiful sculpture in bronze, stone, and marble. And if you bear any resentment against Polyphemus for destr
Read more

Art Nouveau Fever Dream: 29 Ave. Rapp

Image
Like his contemporary Hector Guimard, Jules Lavirotte won architecture awards for the Art Nouveau façade of his signature work. But 29 Ave. Rapp in the 7th Arr., designed by Lavirotte in 1900 with extensive ceramic tiling by Alexandre Bigot, makes Guimard's Castel Béranger look like a model of restraint. If Guimard was the Sly and the Family Stone of Art Nouveau, Lavirotte would be Parliament-Funkadelic; maybe not as groundbreaking, but a little funkier and a lot weirder. The Lavirotte building has too much to appreciate in one go--I've been back a few times, and still can't take it all in. In addition to the floral details ubiquitous to Art Nouveau, sculpted bulls and numerous mascarons (both human and vegetable) adorn the façade, while the ironwork includes peacocks, cats stalking birds, and notably, a lizard for the front door handle. According to some, "lézard" used to be French slang for male genitalia. This from a country that takes a rooster for its nation
Read more

Side Trips: The Arctic Circle

Image
Sunset, about 3:30 PM, Sinettä, Lapland, Finland, latitude N 66° 38' 53", longitude E 25 27' 47". Is the Arctic Circle cold in late-January/early February? Surprisingly, the answer for us was "it depends." The lowest low temperature for the three days we were in Rovaniemi was -10°c (about 12° F) but usually around 0°c (32° F) during the 7 or so hours of daylight. Basically, in the ranges that are normal for a winter in Tahoe, and warmer at times than Paris in the month prior to our trip. Not at all as depicted in the 1913 silent film Les Drames du Pôle. Which meant it was warm enough to walk around comfortably outside, but also warm enough to cloud up and snow--which meant we had no chance to see the Aurora Borealis, which is what motivated the trip in the first place. If you've ever got skunked on a fishing trip or surf vacation ("you should have been here yesterday!") you know the feeling. The good news was that rural Lapland is beautiful in
Read more