Sunday, October 04, 2009

Sunday Afternoon

After days of rather dreary weather, it finally cleared this afternoon. We attended the Brattleboro Literary Festival in the early afternoon, went for early Sunday dinner, then home - where the afternoon sunlight through the fall foliage was wonderful.

The yard has been especially busy with woodpeckers - multiples of Downy Woodpeckers, at least one pair of Hairy Woodpeckers - and others that are, or soon will be, migrating. There have been several Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers working the trees; most likely they are young. This one is certainly a juvenile with just flecks of the red cap and red chin beginning to appear ...

Norther Flickers (yellow-shafted) are flying through the yard constantly. They are feeding heavily on the berries of the many viburnum that my favorite companion has planted throughout the yard. They are very skittish, and it was sheer luck that the camera focused quickly on this one ...

There were few migrating songbirds present. However, I did coax this Ruby-crowned Kinglet down - every so briefly - from the crown of the apple tree where it was feeding (note the broken white eye-ring) ...

I have to include one of the birds that does not fly south. The White-breasted Nuthatch helps lighten the short December days and warm the cold January days, and I salute him/her, even though many seeds were tossed out before one was chosen ...

And finally, just a touch of the autumn colors that are coming to their peak ...

Good birding!

5 comments:

Tina said...

Flickers are such a colorful bird and boy you are so right ..they are skiddish and getting a good picture of them is quite the challenge. Your photos are very nice..our trees haven't started changing colors yet but with these cold nights..I'm expecting some color to show in the next week.

Chris said...

Hi Chris,
What a nice Sunday afternoon you got... I would love to see flickers flying all over the place. There are wonderful birds and i love their feather pattern!
The White-breasted Nuthatch is something I've never seen neither, we have the other species in France, the wood nuthatch.
I love the Ruby-crowned Kinglet picture. He looks very funny.
You've got a nice birding with beautiful pictures. Congrats.

Erica Houskeeper said...

Your photos are beautiful. I just love the White-breasted Nuthatch image. Very moving.

Anonymous said...

The weather was much better yesterday than Saturday. I had to get off the island and go up to New Hampshire. The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is a great shot.

Dawn Fine said...

Howdee Chris,
I keep looking at the photo of the Ruby crowned...its checking you out!
Nice fall colors and birds!

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