Things with wings

A friend tells me her father used to call her bird-feeder a "hawk-feeder." This afternoon I noticed a junco hiding under the tree on our deck, stock-still. So I looked around for what he was frightened by. Sure enough, this sharp-shinned hawk was just six or eight metres away, sitting in the apple tree. Until I got too close, Sharpie wasn't bothered by me. He just kept looking around for a meal. When I did get in too close, he flew off next-door into another low tree. And then on his way. The junco came out from hiding.

Fillin their gobs, showin they're yobs.

We have a higher than usual proportion of purple finches around the feeder and, here, on the Christmas tree outside the kitchen window. So every day now I'm seeing a dozen of them almost whenever I look out. They seem to come and go with pine siskins rather than with the goldfinches. This, an adult male, is far brighter than his female or younger male friends.

I often console myself with the thought that I have never had to get a living from my picture- taking. Nonetheless, my worst failures often produce what I think of as lovely pictures. I was taking pictures of the moon outside my kitchen door when I heard this going over. I've no idea whose plane it is but it was landing at the airport, about ten km to the north of me. In a fifteenth of a second, even a slowing plane travels a long distance.

I'm not much to be afraid of anyway, but this guy is less wary than his friends. I was outside with the camera, trying to take a picture of the moon when he and three friends arrived and, from the nearby tree, they demanded peanuts. Of course, well-trained as I am, I went and got some. He came right down. The peanuts were a kind of modelling fee so I shifted focus from the moon.

My OM-D is in OM-D hospital for a stopt-shutter-syndrome operation. I am, resultingly, trying to get used to using my 2009-vintage Olympus E-P2 again. The E-P2 sensor is poorer, and the white balance quite different on the "same" settings. Oh well, every tool has its specialty product; I just haven't yet found this one's. Today we're having freezing rain and there's a flock of pine siskins and purple finches about. This siskin was sitting in the Christmas tree on our deck for a few minutes, maybe out of the rain, digesting a bit.

Yesterday in dark, drizzly rain, a couple of starlings sharing the suet block with some others.

We have bluejays every day and sometimes i forget to take their pictures. This morning I put a handful of peanuts out, crushed a few for the juncos, and stood by as the jays came down in rapid succession to take one. This fellow got a crushed one -- thus the crumbs.

Northern flicker who had been feeding on my peanuts but who was wondering what was on the go above her.

He's orangey and maybe he'll get redder. He and a female friend were quick-to-leave visitors his afternoon. Crossbills are rare at our feeder, though a friend a kilometer SW of here gets them regularly. I'm glad to see them. I am using my E-P2 camera, now almost thirteen years old, while waiting for my E-M1 to fly back home from camera hospital. The sensor difference between the two cameras is substantial, but in a perverse sort of way, I like the muckiness of the E-P2.

This morning I stept outside the basement door and found this dead pine siskin. A feather was stuck to a window three or four metres above it. I imagine it hit the window earlier in the morning. I have several times saved birds that got knocked out by flying into windows. But this one was beyond resucitation.

I am still waiting for my somewhat younger and better camera body to arrive back from camera hospital. In the meantime I'm still using what I've been calling my muckicam, a 13-year-old Olympus E-P2. It's not bad within limits -- I suppose like any camera -- but it's harder to find the limits and stay within them than with my OM-D. This was this morning when the Red crossbills flocked in for an hour. There seems to be about a dozen who are hanging out in our neighbourhood. And the adult males are getting redder by the day.

A Red crossbill sits placidly among the noise and haste of his littler cousins, a couple of American goldfinches, each of the three only a single representative of dozens more all around.

This isn't as bad as it looks. The male goldfinch (in front) has a seed in his mouth and he's about to crack it open. The female is about to land between the male and the (much-larger and thus placid) female crossbill behind the feeder. They're all just getting along. (I cannot resist a Leonard Cohen reference. Even if it's nowhere near closing time yet for these birds.)

I crept in as close as I could get without disturbing him. I'm still waiting for my better body to return from camera hospital. This is with my old Olympus E-P2.

Like so many birds, the Red crossbill is named for male of the species, and then for the flourish of colour during his mating period. They seem to be getting redder every day, though you might say "That one's not red; it's orange." Yeah yeah.

Right now, mid- to late April, is when we see the little finches reaching their fullest regalia. The purple finches, like this fellow, are as purple as they get. Or raspberry red, or whatever it is.

We've been in this house, feeding birds at the back gallery (deck, porch, verandah. . .) for twenty-two years. This is the first year we've seen an irruption of Red crossbills at our house. And it's been every day for weeks now. I'm amazed at how different almost every crossbill is. Mind you, this *is* the season of the switch -- spring-time, hey ring-a-ding-ding-time -- as they brighten up and change colours. That only adds to their variety. The crossbills are fairly tame. This feeder is about a metre from the rail of the gallery, and I was at the rail, so the camera was not much more than a metre from the bird when I took this picture.