I headed out with Ceaglaigh in late October to see what we could see in Confederation Park. As I drove up I saw Ceaglaigh walking toward our prearranged meeting point from the wrong direction, she had spotted some little birds in a tree on the boulevard and said she was sure they were Yellow-Crowned Kingflits. Birding is all so new to me and I hadn’t even arrived and she was already finding birds for us.
At this point, I was really happy to have Ceaglaigh as my new found birding buddy since I have no idea about birding at all. And she was right about the Yellow-Crowned Kingflits. There were two hoppin’ and boppin’ all over that tree.
I know a few birds (sparrows, but now I find out there are at least 5 kinds, chickadees, robins, hawks, owls – again so many different kinds to differentiate). Luckily I have two friends, Ceaglaigh and Fay who know a ton about birds! Fay came out with Ceaglaigh and me once and it was great to have two people who are able to identify many of the birds and even recognize them by their song, and… well, just actually see them. I often don’t even spot them although I am getting better than I used to be.
Birding and photographing birds are two separate sports I have found, both of which I believe I am improving on as the months go by. Seeing and recognizing birds requires a great deal of patience and a bit of research. Photographing birds takes a great deal of patience and a lot of research and practice. Same but different!!
The pictures below are some of my first and getting the settings right is a skill I am getting better at now although I think I need a lot more practice.
We were busy looking for our favourite little chickadees and came across this lovely woodpecker. I had to go to Merlin Birds and do a comparison between two very similar types.
The next few pictures are of the lovely and joyful little Chickadees. I love these little guys. We tempt them with food to sit on our hands and eat or just put the seed in a nice spot to photograph them. I’m certain that baiting birds for photography is an okay practice. If you disagree, she shrugged…
Finally, we wandered over to the pond and even though there was still ice in many places these ducks still were hanging out having a family picnic.
