The birds and the bees

Found out via this BoingBoing post about an amazing collection of backyard bird photos by Rick Lieder. Dig deeper on Lieder's site and you'll find equally striking older galleries devoted to honeybees and ants, as well as a bunch of tiny critters that feed on your plants. The images bring out the beauty in slugs, beetles, houseflies, and their ilk. As I examined the mosquito pix (which show their most infamous behavior in dazzling detail), I found myself scratching an imaginary bite on my wrist. Lieder is currently promoting a new book of his "aerial acrobats" which looks pretty swell. (Note: the cover photograph isn't one of the more impressive images, judging from the slideshow on his site, but I felt OK about using the image. Bonus points for including a little snow in that one, too.)

UPDATE (1/26/09) I see from his blog that Buffalo-based artist/designer Julian Montague was also struck by the Lieder pics. From the post, I learned that Julian has his own bird-photography project, and I'm eager to see more of it. Interesting case of Same Subject Matter, Different Execution.