Oriole Takeoff!

My second airborn Baltimore Oriole in less than two weeks. Here's the first--that was a female, this is a vivid orange and black male, displaying his lovely yellow tail feathers. He's taking flight from a perch just to the side of the feeder at Les Campbell's place, where we met this morning  for the first of two field outings for my bird photography workshop. (The second is tomorrow.) 

The session went off very well; we had a reasonable variety of birds, and Les set up his arrangement for shooting hummingbirds with strobe lights--it's just outside a window of his studio, and he can sit inside with his camera. Quite marvelous--I had not seen it before.

My favorite email blipviewer has posted this poem:

"Oriole--athlete of the air--
    Of fire and song a glowing core,
From tropic wildernesses fair,
    Spring's favorite lampadephore,

A hot flambeau on either wing
    Rimples as you pass me by;
'Tis seeing flame to hear you sing,
    'Tis hearing song to see you fly."

from "Spring's Torch-bearer" by Maurice Thompson (1844-1901)

P.S.  a lampadephore is "a torch-bearer; spec[ifically]. a competitor in a torch-race," and to rimple is "to form into small folds or undulations; to wrinkle; esp. (of water) to ripple."  (both from the OED)