With a few more centimetres of snow overnight, and temperatures finally dipping down to where they should be at this time of winter, the bird feeders in the back yard are getting some attention from a few birds that are a bit more interesting than the run-of-the-mill starlings, doves and sparrows that I'm always complaining about.
Here, proving once again that shooting with a short zoom lens through a dirty window never works well (but thank goodness I actually got the white balance right this time!), are a couple of shots of the Dark-Eyed Junco, Junco hyemalis, a slightly nervous but generally friendly little finch with a pretty ivory-coloured beak and a couple of trendy white tailfeathers that flash while it flies. There were half a dozen or so of them hanging around the yard today.
I didn't get any good shots of their friend the Goldfinch, who doesn't seem to have figured out that all of his friends migrated south a long time ago. He's toughing it out, dressed in his most handsome winter drab. Brave little guy.
7 comments:
Snow! Wondrous snow! Could you please send some over here so I can make a snowman? I'm being deprived by the stupidly wet weather here in England...*sob*
oooo, i love bird photos. i'd have a word with that goldfinch though - or at least knit him some booties.
Snow? You want snow? You can have mine! Especially since there's anoth34 15 cms or so predicted over the next 24 hours.
Excellent photos, R'pus!
klxlt - an exclamation of excellence, pertaining particularly to an R of the Pus variety.
pgiwnvck - wv from the 2nd attempt to comment. Also what I mumbled under my breath as Google/Blogger taunted me, with its, "Who are you? Oh, right. You must sign in again, you have have been FORCED to change from a service that worked to one that almost doesn't and now we can pretend we don't recognize you." Bleurgh! Computers! Software!
*trundles off, mumbling, stage left*
Those are great pictures - nice job :) We used to have bird feeders, but after a few tragedies, I eventually decided I was giving a very unfair advantage to my cats. But I still enjoy my parents' feeders - the humminbirds are my favorites :)
...and we thank you.
One advantage of 10.3 Mpixel digi-camera - you can take pix of teeny tiny birds, then zoom waaaaay in. Can't go much closer than the second pic though, without it becoming nastily pixelated.
10.3????
Well, that's just showing off.
Harumph!
*winks*
those are an awful lot of pixels to be playing around with - i hope that you were supervised.
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