A Squabble of Starlings.

 Collectively more than one Starling constitutes a ‘Squabble’, individually they are a pretty impressive bird in my opinion. They’re a nice shape, discrete iridescent coloring and lovely markings, I like a single.  More than one however is a pain in the ass,  squabbling over food, perches you name it. A murmuration on the other hand is a sight to behold. The last really big one I saw was at Marazion in Cornwall in the late 90’s as many thousands were getting ready to roost for the evening. 

A few different species today, the light was all over the place as the low sun would be obscured by the now leafless trees shading the feeders then emerging and it was too bright. Oh well.

My  Merlin Sound ID was detecting both Carolina Chickadee and Black-capped Chickadee. Who knows what they were, probably all hybrids🙄. I took my best guess  with the naming.

Starling

American Goldfinch

Black-capped Chickadee

Chickadee

Chickadee

Chickadee

Dark-eyed Junco

Dark-eyed Junco

House Finch

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

Same Old

Here's more of the usual crowd from yesterday. I kept seeing blue flashes going by my feeders and eventually found where they were going. It was a small flock of Bluebirds feeding on the abundance of berries on my big old Yew trees. The Winterberry bushes were loaded last year but not so much this year, the Honeysuckle berries are about the same but the Yew's are very popular.

Blue Jay

Carolina Wren

Carolina Wren

Downy Woodpecker

Starling

Starling

Now for something completely different.

Landscapes, I haven't done any for a while so I dug up a few in the hopes that it might give me the inspiration to do a few instead of the same old yard birds. A few feet of snow would certainly increase the variety in the yard.

Dawn at Little Moose Island

Sunset on the Schoodic Peninsula

Bass Harbor Night Sky

A few from a brief session yesterday.

I'm calling these Black-capped Chickadee because that what Merlin was calling them from the Sound ID. I'm not going to argue.

Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee

Downy Woodpecker

Tufted Titmouse

Starling

Waiting for the Kettle to Boil

While waiting I played with this shot.

Bluebird

The Bluebirds have been absent from the yard for a while after raising a couple of broods. So much natural food about so I suppose they were taking their offspring out into the fields then when theyre not looking abandon them to fend for themselves.

1/400s isn't enough.

Well not for Chickadee's anyway. I started off at 1/400s but the damn Chickadee's are fast. I managed with 1/400s on the Woodpeckers but with them head banging back and forth I was only getting a few without motion blur even at 20 frames per second. In the end I ramped the shutter speed up to 1/4000s which increased the noise but I managed to get a lot more that were keepers. Screw the high ISO's, live dangerously and let Topaz save the day. 

Carolina Chickadee (maybe)

Carolina Chickadee (maybe)

Carolina Chickadee (maybe)

Carolina Chickadee (maybe)

Carolina Chickadee (maybe)

Downy Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Starling

taken at 12,800 ISO

Tragedy marred this morning’s photoshoot.

I spilt a fresh mug of English Breakfast Supreme on the floor. In 1 hour 4 minutes I took 930 pictures, downloaded 60 and processed the few you see here. I had fun which is the main thing apart from spilling my tea that is, that wasn't fun at all.

Blue Jay

Blue Jay

Carolina Wren

Carolina Wren

playing at Woodpeckers

Dark-eyed Junco

fluffed up against the freezing temperature

Dark-eyed Junco on Fraser Fir

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Starling

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch

Not the day I was expecting.

 The weather forecast was for rain most of the day so I made plans accordingly. Quite an overnight frost with 27F (-2.7C) temperatures, good job I moved the plants into the greenhouse yesterday. I hadn't planned on being outside due the forecast rain but it was really nice photography weather this morning. The light was beautiful. One of the few perks of having a tree fall in the yard is I get to find some nice logs for the woodpeckers. Although I had my lumberjack gear on yesterday and chainsawed a fair bit of firewood I did find a few nice pieces. The woodpeckers took to it straight away. I decided not to waste the nice light and took a few shots this morning 1783 to be precise.