Odds and ends from the Farm

A few shots from the farm this past week.

Black-capped chickadee

Blue Jay

Dark-eyed-Junco

Black Squirrels have become quite common in western Wisconsin. However, this is the first one I’ve seen on the farm.

Black Squirrel

Black-capped Chickadee

This Black-capped Chickadee was having a hard time of it in the wind and snow.

Chickadee Abstracts

I had been trying to capture shots of Black-capped chickadees in mid flight. Unfortunately it was snowing heavily and was too dark to get good crisp shots. What I ended up with is what I call Chickadee abstracts.

April Blizzard

It’s the second year in a row that we have had a blizzard in April. It started snowing on Wednesday afternoon and snowed into Thursday. Thursday brought very strong winds a blowing snow even though the snow was wet. We also had a reddish colored snow. When I went out for a walk I noticed the top inch of snow was a reddish color. Turns out it was dust blown in from New Mexico and Texas. We ended up with about a foot of snow.

I think I noted that about three weeks ago all of the Dark-eyed Juncos disappeared and I haven’t seen one since. However, on Wednesday a few of the turned up at my feeders. On Thursday morning I looked out and there were 30+ of them scattered over a wide area on the ground. The strong winds had blown bird seed over a wide area in the lawn. They were present all day in large numbers.

The other bird I’ve not seen for a while is the American Goldfinch. They also turned up in large numbers. I noticed that they had started to turn color since I had last seen them.

There were a variety of other birds at the feeders during the storm.

White-breasted Nuthatch

Song Sparrow

Northern Cardinal – female

Northern Cardinal – male

Downy Woodpecker

Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee

I thought when I removed a bunch of the landscaping around the house that the chickadees would stay away but that hasn’t been the case.

Black-capped Chickadees in a Snowstorm

Some days I’m not able to get many photos of Chickadees because they move around so fast. However, during the snow storm they seemed to spend a little more time on their perches.

 

Late Fall Birds on the Farm

These are a few of the birds I’ve seen around the feeder the last few weeks.

Northern Cardinal

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Downy Woodpecker

Blue Jay

Black-capped Chickadee

Fall Birds at my Feeder

Black-capped Chickadee

Hairy Woodpecker

Blue Jay

American Goldfinch

 

More birds in a Snowstorm

 

Some of the other birds at my feeder during the recent snowstorm.

Dark-eyed Junco

House Sparrow

White-breasted Nuthatch

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Black-capped Chickadee

 

 

 

Black-capped Chickadees

Normally I have problems photographing Black-capped Chickadees because the move around so quickly but this year it hasn’t been a problem.