Birds in the garden

Hope all of you with snow and ice are safe! We got lucky Monday night as we only got maybe an inch of snow. It misted all day yesterday you could not see any rain but you could feel it when walking around outside. The mist and my camera did not seem like a great idea, so I set up a chair under the porch and waited for the birds to come back to the feeders.

We had our second visit from a single Bluejay, I do not have any photos of this beautiful bird. The Bluejay was out there before I went out to photograph and never returned. Bluejays like neighborhoods not forest like where we live, in fact I lived here 3 years before I ever saw one here.

 Song Sparrow on top of the hoop house cold frame covered in snow. We have mainly 3 different sparrows in the winter here, White-throated Sparrow(the most common), Chipping Sparrow and Song Sparrow as seen here they are our only year round resident sparrow. A fourth sparrow the Fox Sparrow has been seen in years past but has not made an appearance in years here.

 Pondering Song Sparrow.

 Female Northern Cardinal ready to fly.

 

Here is an image I adjusted in Photoshop by using poster edges, a very simple trick, pretty neat?

 Telephoto shot of the top of the new bottle tree. I added a clear bottle to the top. The second bottle down is an 8 ounce caster oil bottle I found. You also can see 1.5 liter, .75 liter and 6 ounce Riesling bottles.

One special bird returned yesterday while I had the camera out, a Brown Creeper made its 6th appearance this winter on the white oak by our deck. I took photos but they were too poor to post here.

So one might ask what is blooming in out garden. Here is our Helleborus niger covered ice ice and snow. This was the 5th time these blooms have been buried in snow or ice, tough plant don't you think?

One of the front garden pansies covered up in snow and ice. The pansies and violas under the over hang of our porch not covered in snow look pretty bad because they do not have the protection the snow gives them during temps down in the 20s.

Be sure to check out the dog treat or dog cookie  recipe on my last posting.

Birds on the melt down

Today the snow and ice melted all day. Mid morning I was outside and the sound of water falling on the icy snow reminded me of being under a loud powerline that kind of sizzles.

I got out the big guns today! My monster Gitzo tripod with a Silk ball head and added a 1.4x converter to my 400mm lens. So the lens became an 560mm lens with the digital camera multiplying it became a 800mm lens.

Tried several places to shoot but the water falling from the trees placed me under the porch again. The light was better today than yesterday, I did get sun and clouds, it was much brighter.

These squirrel photos were taken through dirty glass. Stupid me cleaned the spider poop and such off the window after taking these photos using the 400mm lens and monopod. Just so you know Carol!

Northern Cardinal  male

The female Northern Cardinal

One of my favorites the Song Sparrow, these are full time residents here unlike the other 'winter' sparrows.

Carolina Chickadee and Dark-eyed Junco. Chickadees are very fast and hard to get the lens on them in time.

White-throated Sparrow their song is so sweet. I usually hear them before I see them in the fall when they arrive.

Tufted Titmouse

Red-bellied Woodpecker. These guys steal the show here! Our property is in the woods so we seldom get Blue Jays or Northern Mockingbirds.

Guess these pansies made it OK in the snow. Yesterday these were under the snow!