Rainy and much cooler
A cold front moved through the
New York area last night bringing gusty winds and rain along with some
significantly lower temperatures.
Yesterday at this time, the temperature crept up towards the 60 degree
mark. Today, it is now 45 degrees
with a low of 29 forecast for tonight.
Fall is making its presence felt.
We’ll get out into the field tomorrow with bright sunshine on its
way. For now, however, I decided
to try a 5 minute blitz upon the birds at our feeders. I mentioned in yesterday's
installment that the birds were mighty hard to come by as I drove down a
normally productive area nearby, Mine Road. I had all I could do to snap a couple of shots of two
birds….the American crow and a Mute swan.
Today, through the window of
our sunroom (a definite misnomer for the present weather conditions), I found
plenty of birds. Nothing exotic,
but attractive birds nonetheless.
The shots today are purely
documentary in nature as I rarely elect to shoot my subjects while they are
perched on a feeder nor is shooting through glass a suggested practice. I prefer
settings a bit more natural than the steel and plastic backgrounds provided at
the feeding stations. But, I just
wanted to see how many I would be able to photograph in one 5 minute
burst. And so…here are the results:
The ever present House sparrow….
Another songbird found throughout the year at our feeders,
the Tufted titmouse…..
A feeder bird much more obvious during the colder months,
the Black-capped chickadee……
Another frequent visitor, the White-breasted nuthatch…..
The “King of the roost”, the Blue jay…..
Another of our “winter birds”, the White-throated sparrow…..
The American goldfinch in its more drab winter plumage……
and finally, a European starling, this one impaired by the loss of one of
its legs…..
In total, eight species showed
up during the five minutes I observed the feeders this morning. A pretty good number, but in reality, not
all that different from what I would normally expect to find here. The collection of species will vary
from season to season, but there is always something to entertain us right
outside our windows.
1 comment:
Hi David - I was following your Australian trip and all the great photos. Have you seen siskins yet? We finally got them at the school last week, but it is supposed to be a big year for them locally.
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