Cat birds

Just thought I'd share some shots I took over the holiday weekend, starting with a photo of my neighbor's cat giving me the classic "What're you lookin' at?" expression:



I liked the symmetry of the birds' positions in this pic:



A Chickadee giving me a sidelong look:



I don't think this one could possibly have opened its beak any wider:



A little later on, it appeared as if this Titmouse found the other half of the Chickadee's peanut:



A closeup I thought came out pretty well:



A pair of Goldfinches:



A pair of Pine Siskins sharing the feeder with a Chickadee:





A closer look at the Pine Siskins:



Some Pine Siskin action shots for you:









Yup, that'd be four Pine Siskins sharing the feeder with a Goldfinch. Considering that before last month I'd never knowingly seen even one, I figured it was as good a shot as any to close out with:

Another snow day

As was the case for most of the eastern half of the country, we woke up to a very snowy landscape on Wednesday—and it didn't look like it'd be letting up anytime soon. So we had a day off from work, which meant I had a chance to do some birdwatching.

First up, just to give you a sense of how much snow we'd gotten overnight, a shot of what my feeder looked like first thing in the morning:



A Titmouse that picked through the snow to snag a bite to eat:



This was the first Junco I've ever seen on my feeder:





A few Chickadee pictures:





I would think this tided the Chickadee over for a little while, at least:



A lucky catch of this Chickadee doing a taste test:



Think this Titmouse was trying to catch some snowflakes on its tongue?



This White-breasted Nuthatch got two for the price of one, as that bit of yellow is a piece of corn frozen onto the peanut:



Finally, a photo I took on Thursday morning; I heard a Cardinal when I walked out of the post office, and after a quick scan of the nearby trees spotted it up in some branches:

Sunday visit

I stopped over at Mom and Dad's on Sunday to hand out with Kaylee for a while, as my folks had traveled north for the day to visit some of our family. I brought my camera along, and now that I've finally gone through all the photos I took I figured I'd post a few of them here.

A dead tree that I thought looked particularly striking against the snow:



A couple of shots I took when the flurries were in particularly high gear:





There were still a few Redpolls hanging around. And by "a few" I mean "enough to have their own Hitchcock movie":







And a closer look at the Redpolls swarming the two seed feeders:



Evidence that I took this picture during a very strong gust of wind?

1. The streaks of snow show that it was moving sideways.
2. The side of the feeder that this Hairy Woodpecker is clinging to is, as you can see in the previous photo, usually perpendicular to the house, not parallel to it:



A male Cardinal that joined the woodpecker on the feeder:



The two birds weathering both snow and Redpoll flurries:



A couple of shots of the male Cardinal in the blue spruce:





And I managed to spot the female Cardinal tucked into the spruce as well:





Finally, a couple of Kaylee shots I took as she made our walk safe from fallen branches...



...and dealt with any suspicious-looking bark as well. After all, one can never be too careful, right?

A few Saturday shots

I stopped by Mom and Dad's for lunch today, and even though the photos I took while I was there aren't my best shots ever, I figured I'd share anyway...

A Red-breasted Nuthatch that took advantage of a Redpoll lull to grab some thistle:





A Blue Jay checking out the ground under the seed feeders:



I was actually focused on photographing Blue Jays when I managed to catch this Hairy Woodpecker as it came in for a landing:





The woodpecker kept an eye on a Red-breasted Nuthatch as it departed from the mesh feeder:



Kaylee, soaking up some sunshine:



And finally, Kaylee decided that she and her duck would be more comfortable on the blue chair just a few minutes later:

See? Told you I'd be back...

Gotta say, it is very weird to not be using the 365 tag when creating a new post...

Anyway, just wanted to share a few pictures I took over the course of the weekend, starting with some Blue Jays:



Loved this lucky shot of a Blue Jay in the midst of tossing a seed down the hatch:



And a few more pictures of Kaylee, starting with her curled up in her favorite chair:



Wearing one of her new toys as a party hat at my parents' New Year's Day gathering:



Finally, I think this is my favorite shot because of the way the couch brings out the color of her eyes: