Shaded Birds

Time for a stretch. Wind is blowing but I was just wondering if any birds were about outside the office. Took the short walk around the woods and hardly saw a thing. I finally found a few birds feeding...right where I had started, at the office door. A few birds were in this small feeding flock but they were all in the shade. That's where the wind was keeping all the bugs!

The most noisy species, as is almost always the case, was the Tufted Titmouse. There were several of them about and they darted from low in the hedges to back into the lower branches. They were moving so quickly that I was happy to even get a kind of blurry shot.



Slipping silently between the leaves were a couple of Ruby-crowned Kinglets.



Bouncing around near the Kinglets I almost missed a White-eyed Vireo. They tend to look similar as they glean insects with one another.



The other species in tow as a Black and White Warbler. Seems like you can almost always count on one of these birds if you look hard enough.



On the way home I checked out the retention pond behind a church and was pleased to find three Wilson's Snipe probing the mud. Sadly, the pond drying up fast as we are lacking inches of rain this year. There were still a few Hooded Mergansers at the far end of the pond but not much else.



Not a bang-up day but plenty to keep me happy for the few minutes I got to spend outside.