Tufted Titmouse
Almost “T-shirt weather” and great light made me spent some time behind the camera on our front porch this late afternoon. As mentioned in my last blog post, there is a new “shooting gallery” in place, a little rack that holds a heated bird bath, a few bird feeders, and a couple dead red cedar trees (or at least parts of them), that serve as perches, and of course the places where I would like to make a photo. It is mobile and can be moved to a different location if I see a need for doing so. The idea behind is that I like to use “the gallery” during the “real winter” here in eastern Iowa (for my friends in South Africa and Germany: -20º to -50ºC), means having the camera on a tripod in the house and the birds still right in front of me. Right now I have my doubts that we are already in November, but there is no reason to stay inside and today we had about 22ºC (72º Fahrenheit). Oh yeah, people and animals enjoyed it the same way!
Black-capped Chickadee
Black-capped Chickadees are omnipresent all year long in our woods and it was also a great year for the Tufted Titmouse. We saw a lot of juveniles in late summer but now it is a little more difficult to tell what bird is an experienced adult or offspring from 2020. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter, we enjoy frequent visits of any kind of bird and both species are great to find out about the best settings for the new “shooting gallery”. I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful weekend.