Find the food; find the birds! In the Winter solving this problem makes a HUGE difference if you want to see any of our feathered friends. Long story short, found lots of dead birch and aspen trees in a gully where the birds could hide from the wind while eating at the same time, and suddenly the woods came alive with bird song. In this particular grove I saw over ten Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers.
Today is a milestone … my 50th day of taking photographs of birds. I had hoped for a dramatic photo, and towards that end I had cruised up and down a favorite tamarack pine forest well noted for snowy and grey gray owls. Unfortunately I struck out, but did enjoy having this Canada Jay which fly down to get some gravel only a few feet away from me upon the dirt road where I was standing.
Back in late January friends told me the location of a Northern Hawk Owl. For about a week I often checked upon this bird, and discovered his favorite pine tree for enjoying some late afternoon sun. However, over the intervening 5+ weeks, I had not returned to check on this bird.
This afternoon I wondered if my owl might still be in the same territory, and hopefully might consider raising some baby hawk owls. Given a bright sunny afternoon, I made an excursion to check on the “favorite tree”. As you can see, he (or she) is still there!
