'I want a man, not a preening peacock! — Katherine Givens
Excessive preening by anyone is almost taken as a narcissistic attitude by society. Males, especially, in humans, are not supposed to engage in preening constantly. It comes off as a ;self-obsessed' attitude.
In birds, however, this is not so. Preening, is a REQUIREMENT for regular 'maintenance', As we all know, feathers play a very big part in the aerodynamic performance when a bird flies. Feathers which have tangles and knots increase the drag. Such tangles form sometimes due to ruffling as the bird flies in rough weather or due to some substance adhering to them as it feeds etc.
Therefore, birds constantly preen, Out of the many preening bird photos that I have taken, one of the spectacular ones is of a Short Toed Snake Eagle preening its tail feathers.
Chasing my tail like a dog? Nope. Preening my tail feathers!
I was out for a night of owl hunting (with my camera - not a gun!) and got some great shots of an Oriental scops owl after quite a scary experience but that is a story for another time. This one is about preening.
While returning from the owl hunt, around 10 am on a Sunday morning, nothing much was happening in the world around. Life was quaint in the villages by the side of the expressway I was on. A shepherd was about the only human being I saw up and about, enjoying a smoke...
I noticed him as I stopped for a water break and clicked his pic, with him looking suspiciously at me!
I continued on my return journey. On an expressway, going at 120 KPH, I had to keep my eyes on the road and tunnel vision set in so, there was nothing else I could observe.
Should have packed the camera in the bag, I thought to myself. Nothing worth photographing will be visible now on this road, said I.
However, nature and God work in mysterious ways...
After about couple of hours of driving, the water break which I had taken started showing it's effects. All that water I had drank, was clamoring to come out! My bladder felt like a water bed - undulating with each bump in the road.
I have to take a break and go water some trees by the roadside I thought. Pulled over and rushed into the ditch beside the road and Ahhhhhhhhh - what a relief!
As luck would have it, I saw this Montague's harrier circling close by and watching me! What a shameless guy, she must have thought as she watched me relieve myself!
Harrier watching me as I 'watered' some trees 😀
Snapping a picture as the harrier floated around, I noticed some strange bump on the top of a powerline structure, out of the corner of my eye. It was at a distance but when I looked at the bump through my lens, I found this Short toed snake eagle, preening it's tail feathers.
So - that is the story and here is my entry for the contest:
My Entry for the contest
Information about photograph
- Aperture: F7.1
- ISO: 100
- Shutter: 1/1000
- Support: Handheld shot
- Camera: Nikon D500
- Lens: Nikkor 200-500mm
- Image format: Photo clicked in RAW and edited for presentation sizing
A big thank you for support
Thanks to c/hive-106444 (Feathered friends community) for providing this wonderful opportunity to present my experience and photographs. Thanks to 
Thanks to HIVE for this wonderful platform. I am using the Hive logo in the collage for showing that the image and post is a dedicated HIVE post. Hope that is OK. The burb with HIVE is a graphic created by 
Note: All images and collages in this blog are created by me, based on photos clicked by me personally and/or free vector images from Pixabay
Quotes used, if not credited, are either from unknown authors or are proverbial old sayings.
