Une Envie de Sel

I may have mentioned that I'm having a bit of an obsession with small songbirds lately. I realized after my first attempt at sketching a finch (much too quickly, since I'm on deadline for a job or two right now, and should not be spending my time doodling) I was instantly desperate to draw many, many more.
In that interest, I asked my mother (the wildlife painter, who has wonderful lenses for photographing birds) whether she'd have time to snap a few shots of songbirds for me in her beautiful back gardens.
This is the first that she sent me. It's a swift. Isn't it lovely?
When we lived in the Vail Valley, I remember a number of people in our community getting very worked up about swifts building nests in the eves of their garages, and pooping all over their shiny SUVs. That really rubbed me the wrong way. How can you be angry at a bird as beautiful as this? That's what car washes are for.

Incidentally, I also hooked up my own zoom lens (it's a much cheaper version than those my mother uses, so the quality will not be this good) and bought a bag of wild finch food. This morning when I awoke, I had a smorgasborg of wild finches outside on the deck. I will post the results once I weed through them.