Snowy Friday Backyard Birds

If you remember I was very envious that Tom got to photograph our birds in the backyard on each of days for the President's birthdays. Well today...Hehe...while Tom was using the snow blower this morning I was using his 300mm f2.8 lens on the deck. I just love these photos with the snowflakes coming down! Here are photos that I took today in the snow...



This little downey woodpecker landed so close to me I almost was too close to focus (I had to lean back a little)

I was playing around with this image in photoshop and came up with the Black and White and Red.
I apply this affect a lot for our brides and I am always silently ecstatic when I get to a Bride's house and see color in her bouqet. I know that white flowers with her white dress is always classic but I miss the opportunity to be able to apply this selected color technique.


This Tufted Titmouse just posed for me.

Tom put our Christmas tree out back when we took it down so that we could use it for our photos. The entrie time that I was outside only this one bird landed on it (it was very close to me and there was no food near it) but I just love the little gal (female Junco) on the evergreen with the snow.


4 photos of male Juncos

Another female junco

Birds on President's Day

Tom was off from work today for the President's holiday. He spent the afternoon outside in the backyard photographing the birds that come to our feeders. Here are a few photos of the beautiful red-bellied woodpecker that he took today.

Birds in Our Backyard

My first bird for 2008 was a red-bellied woodpecker. Tom went out this afternoon and took some photos near the deck at our bird feeders. He used the Canon 40D with MY Canon 500mm f4 IS lens...

We have had 4 kinds of "woodpeckers" in our yard for the past 3 years (Hairy, Downey, red-bellied and yellow shafter flickers). This winter we gained a fifth with the yellow-bellied sapsucker.

The black capped chickadees are not at all shy and will even stay at the feeder when I go out to fill it. They love it when I open the bathroom window and scare away the squirrels, they don't move as the dozen squirrels scamper off and happily fly right down for a nut.


We always have lots of juncos too. Here is a male and a female.

The carolina wrens nested on our front door last year. I had left a grapevine wreath up last March when we went away for ten days to Florida. When I came home there was a nest in the wreath. I carefully moved the wreath to the wall next to the front door (the front door was the "back" of their nest) and we were treated with seeing them hatch and fledge 4 babies. I would come home from work every afternoon and put put meal worms for them. Tom put out some dried meal worms and they were quite happy today. I think that they remembered...