So Ugly, So Beautiful

I got my walk in this morning, pre-front windy!

 

And now I look out my window at lightning and dark skies, and I listen to the rolling thunder. 

My childhood excitement returns:  a day so ugly, I find it beautiful.  And this rain; this storm; this wild weather will bring a beautiful fall day tomorrow, and the next, and the next…

Surely I’ll go out in the field this week and shoot some more birds.  But my recent time at Galveston Island State Park, where I paused from shore birding to give a few Great-tailed Grackles my focus, turned into some playfully-favorite photos.

These locals, stereotyped with lowness in the bird-watching world’s caste system, never cease to surprise me with their beautiful intelligence. 

We could argue Great-tailed vs Boat-tailed, but I’ve seen enough Boat-tailed to always look at the eye.  For the Gulf Coast, the solid brown eye of the Boat-tailed is a clean marker. 

These Great-tailed were mixing with other species, showing themselves to be beautiful in look and playfulness. 

Note the deep blues and purples of these males, sporting their over-sized tails:

And then this tail-less, war-torn (molting) female is so ugly, she’s beautiful, yes?  How many of us could balance in this way and still pull off that elegant Helen Hunt look (“As Good as It Gets” bathtub scene)?

Speaking of bathtubs:

And catching this eye blink makes me want to stop throwing away such photos.  Maybe I’ll start an eye-blink collection:  

And the self-awareness reflection that tells a story, unknown to we humans:

The beautiful sound of driving rain is calling me to get off the computer, take my cup of tea, and listen.  

And what’s that silence behind the rain?  The ugly sound of the air conditioner’s compressor has stopped!  Ahhctober!