Category Archives: songbirds
spring break – chick with suet
It’s spring break here and the weather is springlike, too. Warmer temperatures quickly melted the last snow of only an inch or so. Banks of snow in the shade shrink smaller every day and most sunny spots are clear of snow.
The mountain chickadee below is enjoying a bite of homemade suet.
I saw four bluebirds in an old wildfire burn area yesterday, but they were too far away for a close up portrait. I looked for spring birds around my home today but all I found were the year ’rounders like the chickadee above.
winter snack
Mountain Chickadee: Wintering Close to Home
The little mountain chickadee is often a photographic subject for me in winter. This one posed for a portrait view behind a rail covered with snow. Then, it perched on the feeder hook as the little nutchatches often do. The mountain chickadees seems comfortable with me and the camera as near as about 8 ft. Any closer and I send them flying into the nearby trees. Both of these images were captured with a 100 to 400 lens from about 10 feet.
I’m not really a birder, I just like the challenge of photographing them. I have to keep the field guides to birds at hand to look up any unfamiliar species. I also search for information about my feathered subjects online. In a recent search, I learned that the mountain chickadee stays only a short time near the nest where it hatched. It then moves to a new location and spends the rest of it’s life there. No migrating away from winter weather for these little birds. No wonder they seem so appreciative of the seeds I put out for them.
pygmy nuthatch
With more snow in the forecast, these little birds seem to be stocking up today. I know that some bird species hide a stash of seeds. At the rate the seed is leaving my feeders today, it wouldn’t surprise me to find these birds hiding the seed somewhere. They seem too small to be eating it all.