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We created a mini bird feeding habitat a couple of weeks ago and the word has spread. It's not unusual to see 20-30 birds foraging on wild bird seed and sunflower seeds in our backyard now. It's great. I usually do a quick once over to make sure we don't have any new visitors and then go about my business.
Today Lee noticed we were entertaining a special visitor, not uncommon to the mountain range around us, but new to our feeder and a first sighting for Lee. It was great to see Lee's excitement because one like I said her first sighting and two she identified it on her own, well she identified the family not the species. Since she couldn't immediately put her hands on her binoculars she was forced to use her naked eye. I agreed with her first conclusion, I was also using my glasses dependent eye balls. After grabbing the camera, drinking two cups of coffee and finally capturing it's image, it was decided we were wrong. With the naked eye and the distance from the bird we couldn't see the white strip over it's eye. We mistaking thought it was a Black Capped Chickadee, which wasn't normally found in this area, as Lee pointed out to me. After looking at the images we could see the white strip and knew then it was a Mountain Chickadee, normally found in the mountains around us.
The chickadee looks a little haggard. Normally the feathers are very neat and dry, while these looked bunched and oily. Who knows what the story?
I hope you enjoy the photos.
Make a great day!
my little chickadee :)
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