Justfolk's photos

This morning a couple of cm of snow are on the ground and there is a dark steady near-freezing rain falling. Most of the birds at the feeder are hungry and wet. Like this red crossbill.

They were all dressed up for a family dinner at the feeder.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Early this morning, I was walking by this scene and I realised I wanted this picture. So I stept over the low fence and held my camera down low, taking the picture while viewing it only on the back screen. Pfft! I forgot I had had it set on manual focus, and didn't think to check the picture until I got home and put the picture on the computer. And then it was too late. As a very small picture, I think it's lovely.

We don't know the exact age of Ms Minnie (Minster, Minnifred, and so on). We got her in March 2006, so she's over sixteen. We think she was born around October or November the previous year, but the first veterinary doctor who examined her thought she was already a year old; we didn't believe him. She needs regular medicine these days -- old-cat stuff. But she's still in good cheer, so we are too.

We had a "snow warning" from the weather office this afternoon preparing us for fifteen cm of snow in a rapid fall. But we got only about eight cm, and a lot of that melted before it started to stick. So it's a pleasant evening outside now.

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.

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

I knew that saffron comes from a crocus flower and I was impressed by the pollen on these crocus flowers today. It was a lovely warm and sunny day, about ten degrees in the sun and, in the park, crocuses were blooming. When I got home I checked how close these are to the saffron crocus. Not very. Oh well.