Don't be fooled. Inside this thin coating of sweetness is a fiery core of total insanity.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Spuggies

Do you know what a spuggie is? It's an English slang term for a bird. You learn these things when you have an English husband.

One of my Christmas gifts was a Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0, a motion-activated outdoor camera that can be set up near my birdfeeder to take close-up pictures of the birds without scaring them away or having to lurk behind the sliding glass door. My first try resulted in pictures that were out of focus, but a second try got me some that were more useable. I can't lay my hands on my Birds of Washington State book at the moment, so I'm not positive what they all are. I've looked them up on BirdWeb, the website for Seattle Audubon.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: "Hey, there's food in here!"

Bowing his head to say Grace? I think he may have a seed between his toes.

Dark-eyed Junco "Hey, there's food round the back too!"




Red-Breasted Nuthatch (aka Ass-up-a-tree bird, because they cling to tree trunks with their heads down)

House Finch, I think






Some kind of sparrow? I'm not sure, it might be a goldfinch in its winter plumage





We've set up the next batch of photos with a higher resolution on the pictures. These were the best out of almost 200 photos. This camera will be most useful later in the spring, when my garden is once again a hive of hummingbird activity. I plan to set it up on a pole near the Monarda.

I also got a time-lapse camera for Christmas, which I'm planning to set up to get pictures of flowers opening. But that won't be for a while yet.