why go south?

Why go south? I'll tell ya why, because it's -25 degrees Celsius!! Well, tell that to the little birds at our cottage back in Hall's Bay Newfoundland. Mostly Chickadees (the photo above) and Nut Hatches, I find it amazing that many of these birds stick around all year, toughing out even the coldest of weather. I guess it helps that my Nan keeps this little bird feeder stocked up with birdseed, scraps and the occasional chocolate chip cookie.

They seem to like the black sunflower seeds best (note you can see NO black seeds above). My dad figures it's because those seeds have the greater amount of fat--smart birds!

I spent a fair amount of time shooting small birds on my holidays...the non-lethal sort of shooting, of course. The new remote shutter trigger helped with that and as a result I must have taken 300+ shots like this. I enjoy wildlife photography a lot--maybe someday I'll be able to chuck $15000 on a long telephoto lens (yeah...I'll hold my breath!). I took quite a few pictures at higher shutter speeds of 1/500th or 1/600th of second, allowing me to freeze the action a little. This made for some fun shots, like the "dive-bombing chickadee" pictures to the right.

Anyway, there's not a lot of birds swinging by my 16th-floor balcony...particularly these days. Unless of course you count the occasional Turkey Vulture--but I will NOT be leaving black sunflower seeds out for those suckers!