Craig Brelsford
Well-known member
On my recent Qinghai-Gansu Expedition, our team came upon Mongolian Ground Jays in midday desert sunlight. Acquiring high-quality photos would be tough, but there was something else I could do: I could tell the story of the interesting behavior of this intelligent corvid, China's answer to the Roadrunner. Like that well-known bird of the American Southwest, the Mongolian Ground Jay is highly terrestrial (though it flies well), and it is drawn to roads. Within minutes, my partners and I were seeing one of the things that attract ground jays to the road: roadkill. Roadkill consists not just of dead vertebrates, but also of insects struck by passing cars. Often, the moths and flies fall not far from where the car hit them, making them easy pickings for the ground jays. While observing the resourceful jays, I was busy snapping shots. Later, I chose four images that are not of high enough quality to stand alone, but that when put together tell the story of a bird that loves to run and that uses its terrestrial instincts to good effect on the highway. Every picture (or set of pictures!) tells a story! With imagination and knowledge of your bird, your seemingly inadequate shots can be put to good use.
