A selection of white birds and birds with white in their common English names for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: White prompt.
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White Birds
Tag: White-breasted Nuthatch
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White-breasted Nuthatch
My Saturday Bird this week is continuing series of bird species photographed in winter.
This is a White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) photographed in Greenwater Lake Provincial Park, Saskatchewan, Canada at the same time as my recent Pine Grosbeak and Evening Grosbeak posts.
A resident of woodlands across North America. The species is non-migratory with adults normally staying on their territory year round.
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CFFC: Tree, White, Orange and Blue
This is my contribution to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Week 4, Pick a Topic from this Photo.
I picked the tree and the colours white, orange and blue. I decided to go with a small selection of photos of one family of birds, Nuthatches, in different trees in different regions.
This is the Eurasian Nuthatch, also known as the Wood Nuthatch or simply as a Nuthatch depending on which authority you reference. Feeding in typical Nuthatch style, going down a tree trunk checking nooks and crannies for insects. Photographed in Cheshire, England in the late 1980s.
This is the White-breasted Nuthatch of North America. This individual was photographed in light snow at -25°C in Saskatchewan, Canada in the late 1990s and is probably a male.
This is a Red-breasted Nuthatch of North America and probably another male. This individual is waiting for a turn on the suet feeder in the yard. Photographed in Ontario, Canada in the late 2000s.
You may be wondering where the colours I picked come in. White and orange are the colours of the breast feathers of the various species and all three have blue-grey feathers on their wings and backs.
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Weekly Prompts: Bird Feeders
This is my contribution to the Weekly Prompts: Bird Feeders challenge.
First, I should admit that I have a love/hate feelings towards bird feeders. If I am living somewhere suitable for bird feeders there’s always some out. But for at least a decade, possibly two decades, I avoided photographing birds on feeders. That was due to getting frustrated with editors always picking the photo of a bird on a feeder over the same species in a natural setting.
An early photo of a leucistic juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker on a feeder. Published in a bird watching magazine to illustrate an article on feeding the birds with no mention of the leucistic plumage.
Another early photo, a male Eurasian Siskin on a feeder. A published photo where the editor ignored shots of the same bird in the tree with a natural background.
Fast forward 20+ years and there’s a male Black-throated Blue Warbler coming to eat the grape jelly in an Oriole feeder. Forget the rule about no photos of birds on feeders, I want a record of the behaviour.
Finally, a White-breasted Nuthatch hanging upside down on a suet feeder a couple of years ago.
My contribution to the Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge: White.
Now I will admit that my first thought was snow but after a winter that dragged on for what seemed like 6 months I didn’t want to think about snow.
So I decided to go with a selection of photos of bird species that are mostly white, the first two have white in their common English name.
White-breasted Nuthatch, Saskatchewan, Canada.
American White Pelican, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Caspian Tern with fish on the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario, Canada.
Black-headed Gulls in winter, Cheshire, England.
Snow Geese on autumn migration, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Whooper Swan portrait, Lancashire, England.
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For the Love Of…..
Bird Photography.
This week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge is For The Love Of..….
After rejecting the first couple of ideas for the challenge I thought about some of the various situations I have been in photographing birds.
A young male Rose-breasted Grosbeak in the rain in Ontario, Canada. The camera and lens was covered to keep the rain off but the photographer wasn’t.
A male Common Kingfisher photographed from a small, cramped and hot canvas hide (blind) in Cheshire, England.
A Bohemian Waxwing photographed at -30°C in Saskatchewan, Canada.
An American White Pelican with a large fish in its pouch. Photographed while sitting in the water to keep cool on a hot and very humid day in Saskatchewan, Canada.
A female Common Merganser with a youngster on her back. Taken in Ontario, Canada while being swarmed and bitten by hundreds of mosquitoes.
A male White-breasted Nuthatch photographed in Saskatchewan, Canada. Another -30°C day with some light snow falling this time.
A portrait of a female Wilson’s Phalarope taken while lying in sand mixed with wildfowl poop on the shoreline of a section of Little Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada.
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Mmm, suet cake
The new Tuesday Photo Challenge is Cake.
This was a difficult one for me until I remembered that some people call the various shapes of suet blocks used in bird feeders suet cake. Possibly because often the suet has fruit, berries, seeds and/or nuts mixed into it.
Here’s a male White-breasted Nuthatch feeding on suet cake while hanging upside down.
