Red-breasted Nuthatch.....

I'm so glad this little Red-breasted Nuthatch has decided to "winter" at my house! Actually I have seen two of them! According to the bird guide maps I will only have them for the winter. They are smaller than the White-breasted....only 4.5" long. The belly of the female is pale, so I'm assuming this is a female.
I love the dramatic eye stripes!

It has been coming most mornings to eat some suet.

Very cute little bird.

I like the way it looks from the back with those eye stripes lining the head.

Oops....I think she sees me.

Lovely, lovely little bird. It can have all the suet it wants!

"Really??"

(Good thing I got some suet cakes for Christmas)

Squirrels playing.....

We had about 6 squirrles playing across the lake in the edge of the woods...running, chasing, scampering up trees. Looked like lots of fun! I hope these videos look OK. They always look fine on my computer, but when I put them in my blog, they look fuzzy to me. It was a dark day, so that doesn't help.

Winter visitors at my feeders....

The usual variety of birds are stopping by daily....I really like the Red-bellied Woodpecker. I think he is doing his abdominal exercises here.
Head left....pull up...tail right
Now repeat that several times.

House Finch female

Here comes the "peanut thief".......concentrate on the target...

...got it! I was trying to take videos of him stealing the peanuts, but he is pretty fast at times. Once in a while he stops and stuffs TWO of them in his beak at once! Such greed!

"I better get one before that Blue Jay hogs them all!"

How is he holding that????

"Bet you can't get that off the ground"

(but he did)

As long as there are only two, the Starlings are interesting to watch. I don't think any other bird that comes has such interesting feathers.

Each feather has that light colored tip. A really "spotty" bird, but it makes it easy to recognize when they are in a mass of black birds.

All angles.....wing tips up, tail down. Watching birds balance is a real treat at times.

There are lots more birds out there at the feeders, but the gloomy days make some of them hard to capture well. At least they provide entertainment on those gloomy days. Winter would be awful without them!

The new lens.....

Mike gave me a new lens for Christmas. When it comes to talking camera stuff, I don't know what I am talking about, but this is what I had and now have. My camera is a Fujifilm FinePix S100FS with a built in 28-400mm 14.3x lens. I can't change lens on this camera. The new lens is a Raynox High Definition telephoto conversion lens 2.2x and can be screwed onto the old lens....making it long and heavy. Now, that probably makes sense to some of you, even if it means "blah blah blah" when I hear it. All of these photos were taken through the glass by my front door and are not cropped at all. This first photo is my favorite squirrel with the old lens at its maximum setting.
This is the same squirrel on the feeder hanging there with the new lens! I can't wait to try this on the Snow Geese in Henderson and other far away birds!

What I really like, is that I can back off.....oops, I went too far and hit the wide angle spot. While watching the squirrel, a Red-breasted Nuthatch landed on the suet that is closest to the front door....not more than a few feet away.......

.....and I could still take great photos of this bird that was practically within touching reach with the same big lens on the camera. That should come in handy, since I never know what I will be shooting from one minute to the next.

I had to take a few more nuthatch shots since this guy doesn't come around much.

A blue jay in the same tree.

I know that isn't much with the new lens, yet, but I need to get out where I can experiment in the wild more. Maybe later today.

Squirrel Sunday.....snow!

We got snow for Christmas! In southern Indiana we tend to measure our snow in inches rather than feet. This was about a three inch snow....just enough to make everything pretty, but not too slick or dangerous. "Well, I wish they would turn that white stuff off....it makes me cold and cranky!"

(I don't know about "cold", Star.....but you are always cranky!)
"Well, if you lived outside with a few leaves surrounding you for a nest, you'd be cranky, too!"
(Point taken, Star....Merry Christmas......I'll leave lots of food)

A few snow shots...the wreath on the door caught just enough to look pretty.

The branches of the Ash tree.

The crab apple....still plenty of fruit on it, but the birds are working on it.

The bushes at the corner.

The maples in the side yard.

A splash of red to cheer the day!

Downy on the suet.

Our "snow dome"........I was too lazy to walk down the road for a nice shot from the side.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and got lots of nice presents.

Mike got me a longer lens to attach to my fixed one.....still testing it.

Merry Christmas!.....

Merry Christmas to all of you bloggers!

Have a wonderful holiday and many blessings in the new year.

Red Bellied Woodpecker, Starling, House Sparrows......

I've been busy and haven't taken many photos the last few days. We walked outside just as the Red-Bellied woodpecker was chasing another bird out of the ash tree. Then he sat up there making "chig chig" noises at it to make sure it stayed out of his tree.
Later I saw him on the deck getting a bit of suet. Sorry about the vertical stripes. I was shooting from half way across the room through the open vertical blinds. I was afraid to move closer and scare him away.

He did seem to appreciate the suet offering.

A couple of Starlings have shown up to get suet, too. As long as it is only a couple, I might let him have some.

We stopped at a Taco John restaurant and there was a tree right outside that was covered in House Sparrows all chittering away very noisily. Made me smile at the time. I think they were ordering some Potato Oles from the drive-through window :-)

Squirrel Sunday.....

No funny captions today, but I do have a few photos of the squirrels eating at "their places". As long as I put seeds out on the wood platforms, the squirrel usually leaves the other feeders alone.
Of course, Star considers this big suet cake to be one of "his" places.

This box on the deck is a favorite for this little squirrel that I think is a female.

"What's in here?" The eternal questions for squirrels...."Is it food? Can I have it?"

Back to Henderson Slough....

We went back over to Henderson today to try to show some friends the Snow Geese. It was a cold gloomy morning and I don't think the geese were in the mood for posing or being very lively. We did find a small group of White-fronted geese this time that posed fairly close to the road.
They were so un-moving, I almost felt like I was looking at decoys.

Oh, well...wings up...must be real!

They were staring off across the field. There was a group of Canada geese on the other side of this field.

Two geese coming in for a landing.

Air Canada :-)

I thought the group of Snow Geese looked small, but they were all huddled in this one area.

Sort of a sheltered hill. I think they are waiting for better weather. I wish we would get some sunshine and the temps come back up. I think they would be more active if the weather improves.

Some of the dark ones.

Coming in to land

A group of the White-fronted landing in front of the Snow Geese.

We also chased this Kestrel and several hawks around.....not a very good shot.

I seem to get the focus about the time they take off!

This time it was a Red Tailed Hawk.

Flying away from those 'crazy camera nuts'.

Not a good shot.....but I was focusing on the Hawk (or not focusing as it turned out) and didn't even notice that squirrel on the same branch! Do you think he is hiding behind that limb? Not sure I would want to be that close to someone who might make me his dinner.