Ambiens

The piping shrike at dusk.  Port Wakefield, South Australia.

This photograph had existed in my imaginations for eleven months before it finally happened.  Every time I went for a drive during sunsets I had been taking my camera with me hoping that I could get a photograph of a perching bird silhouetting against the final glow of the day... but I had always failed because every time I pulled over the road, the bird would fly before I could take a snap.
 
But yesterday, after returning the tables and chairs that we used in a party back to the owner, I was so lucky to encounter this friendly bird perching on a shrub at Port Wakefield's bushland.  

The piping shrike, often mistaken as a magpie, is a very important bird in South Australia.  It is featured on the state's flag, badge and Coat of Arms. 

This picture reminds me of my Veterinary Anatomy lesson.  The perching muscle of birds is called ambiens-  "...a thigh muscle of certain birds having the tendon passing over the knee and connecting with the tendon of a muscle that bends the toes so that the body weight on perching causes the knee to bend and the feet to clasp the perch on which the bird sit."  -http://www.merriam-webster.com 

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