Weekly Photo Challenge – Launch

I looked at the topic of this weeks photo challenge and thought how ironic that the first photo challenge for 2012 is titled “launch”, finding a more appropriate topic would have been challenging :-). And with that I will “launch” into my post for this weeks challenge.

Some readers may remember a recent blog I wrote about bird activity at sunset. I’m not quite sure if I mentioned it in that post but, I’ve also witnessed bird activity at sunrise.

I was at a beach not far from Cape Town, during sunrise about two months ago. The light at this time is absolutely wonderful, with a wonderful array of really warm hues all just blending together and slowly losing saturation to become brighter. Its different to sunset in that it gets quite bright very quickly, while at sunset there seems to be a slow lag as the orangey hues just melt into the horizon ever so gently. Anyway, during the observation of this amazing sky, I noticed a flock of birds on the beach sand, all sitting together in a group. Sounded like there was some discussion between them :-), but not being fluent in bird-glish :-):-) I couldnt decipher what they were saying :-). Anyway they seemed to just be quite content with just sitting out there as the sky slowly started warming up. Occasionally, one or two would fly up and around, but generally the group stayed together. Then, as the sun broke the horizon, and the first rays of light bathed them in sunlight, they “launch”ed themselves in unison, literally hundreds of birds just taking off together, with the wonderful orange glow from the sunrise captured beneath there outstretched wings. It was almost as if they were waiting for a prompt to take off, and the shaft of light into the area they were sitting in, was it. They flew around a bit, with lots of chirping going on, but behaved like they were in a group, rather than as individuals who just seemed to be doing their own thing.

A wonderful sight indeed, and fortunately, I had may camera with……when I saw the topic for this weeks challenge, it reminded me, how appropraite these images would be. So todays images are some of the many images I took, of the birds just hanging out  on the beach, and moments after they “launch”ed themselves off………………the journey continues…………………….