Tag: White-breasted Nuthatch

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Cee's Fun Foto Challenge

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.

 

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Pick a Topic from this Photo

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.

 

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Pick a Topic from this Photo

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.

 

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: Pick a Topic from this Photo

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

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.

Leucistic Woodpecker on a suet feeder.

 

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.

Eurasian Siskin on peanuts.

 

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.

Male Black-throated Blue Warbler.

 

Finally, a White-breasted Nuthatch hanging upside down on a suet feeder a couple of years ago.

White-breasted Nuthatch on feeder.

 

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Weekly Prompts

Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge: White

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.

White-breasted Nuthatch

American White Pelican, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Breeding adult American White Pelican

Caspian Tern with fish on the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario, Canada.

Caspian Tern with catch.

Black-headed Gulls in winter, Cheshire, England.

Winter plumage Black-headed Gulls.

Snow Geese on autumn migration, Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada.

A gathering of Snow Geese.

Whooper Swan portrait, Lancashire, England.

Portrait of a Whooper Swan.

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Cosmic Photo Challenge

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.

In the rain.

A male Common Kingfisher photographed from a small, cramped and hot canvas hide (blind) in Cheshire, England.

Male Common Kingfisher.

A Bohemian Waxwing photographed at -30°C in Saskatchewan, Canada.

A Bohemian Waxwing at -30°C.

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.

American White Pelican with fish.

A female Common Merganser with a youngster on her back. Taken in Ontario, Canada while being swarmed and bitten by hundreds of mosquitoes.

Hitching a ride.

A male White-breasted Nuthatch photographed in Saskatchewan, Canada. Another -30°C day with some light snow falling this time.

White-breasted Nuthatch

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.

Female Wilson's Phalarope.

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Tuesday Photo Challenge

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.

White-breasted Nuthatch on feeder.

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Weekly Photo Challenge

Nuthatch Family

The new Wits End Weekly Photo Challenge is Feathered Friends.

As a long time bird photographer I had all sorts of ideas for a post. Then I started thinking about bird families and realised that I could post about the Nuthatch family divided by decades and locations.

So we’ll start in Cheshire, England with a European species, the Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea), also known as the Wood Nuthatch. Photographed in the 1980s, I had set up a shovel handle as a perch for a European Robin that wouldn’t cooperate. So I photographed the Nuthatch when it used the perch.

Wood Nuthatch.

 

Now to a North American species, the White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) photographed in Saskatchewan, Canada in the 1990s. A bitterly cold winters day, around -30°C with some light snow coming down. The dark crown stripe means that this is probably a male.

White-breasted Nuthatch

 

Finally, another North American species, a Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) photographed in Ontario, Canada in the 2000s. Once again, the dark crown stripe means that the bird is probably a male.

Male Red-breasted Nuthatch.