Snow Birds

Feeder Time

Now that the pine tree has lost half it's branches we get a lot more sun on the birdfeeders.  Most of my birds are acclimated to my camera leaning out the bedroom window through my vertical Blind.  Some of them more than others.  It took over a year for the Red-bellied Woodpecker to allow this and the Hermit Thrush, who just appeared two days ago, was having none of it.  So he's shot through the window and during the snow storm.  But the rest were shot in the brilliant, pine treeless sunshine.  The snow makes a great light reflector.

Birding Project Update

I've been working away on my birding project.  These are digital/photo fusions.  I'm finding that the "plain" brown birds are the most complex to render.  Much more work than the brightly segmented birds.  But it's partly a proximity issue.  I've decided to let each rendering reflect how much of a particular bird I can actually see which is of course affected by how close I am to the bird.  So the Bald Eagle that was WAY up in the sky took about 5 minutes to render and these sparrows took about 5 hours each. 

These images are my property and may not be used without written permission. © 2014 Colleen McCubbin Stepanic

Busy Bird

Birds are no less busy than bees, especially in the winter.  The White-throated Sparrows are everywhere at Heinz these days and sometimes very accommodating to passing wanderers.  My mind has been just as busy.  It seems as one door prepares to close three or more open and I'm supposed to go through them simultaneously.  All I need to do is to imagine free time for it to disappear but I'm sure I'll work it all out.  I am looking forward to teaching 3 classes this semester at two schools.  So I'm not going to be missing my teller job...at least in terms on income. 

Winter Sparrows

Fox Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

I'm really pretty sure it was another White-throated but I'm having doubts.

The sparrows were also out enjoying Tuesday's sunshine.  The Fox Sparrow is the newest to me and I really like to see them.  Unfortunately I did not get as good a shot of the Tree Sparrow as he deserved.  His "rusty" cap was really quite red.  Last year I determined to learn the sparrows and I have made progress but it is still a bit tricky for me.  You can see the problem if you look at both White-throated Sparrow photos.