Something to crow about

Around mid-morning today, I happened to look up just as a crow swooped past the window across the room from where I sit. Hoping it might have settled on our roadway to pick up some gravel, I grabbed my camera and eased the back door open. Of course, there were no crows in sight.

I decided I'd hang around outside for a few minutes anyway, figuring a little fresh air would do me some good. I'm glad I did, as not thirty seconds later a crow flew by me to land on the railing of our casting platform:





I really liked how distinct the crow's feathers are in this one:



Stepping down onto the platform:



Back up on the rail, I managed to catch this one with its eyes closed:



Moving from one rail to the other:



In a classically inquisitive pose:



This is a sequence of shots in which I caught the crow moving from the middle of the platform to its front lip:













Finally, taking off for the other side of the pond:







A few hours later, Yoshi and I made another attempt at photographing the fish jumping out of the water, this time heading over to the other side of the pond for a try at a different angle. Unfortunately, it got fairly cold last night and didn't warm up much over the course of the day, so we barely saw any rises at all. However, as we stood there a group of Titmice started chasing each other around through the brush; since the sunlight was coming from directly behind them, every time they extended their wings it looked as if they were in front of a light bulb:





And finally, even though this Titmouse is at rest, and thus without nifty backlit wings, I still really liked how the shot came out: