Back yard visitors
Posted on 15th August 2016
New visitors to the backyard this summer have been the Northern Flicker, the Coopers Hawk and a Piliated woodpecker.
We have not in the past seen the Northern Flicker in our yard, but this year we have had several on a recurring basis visit us.
Is this because the weather has been extremely hot, the abundance of insects or a coincidence? I don't know.
Here is a simple click of one such visitor.
If you sit and observe its amazing what you will see. Because we have feeders set up in the yard, it obviously attracts small birds in large numbers.
This gives the ability to both see and give you photographic opportunities not otherwise available.
However the small birds that come down for food are also the fod source of other larger birds of prey. Just another link in the food chain.
This grab shot of the Coopers Hawk was the only frame I had time to take when it swooped down for a meal.
This was taken as it was about to take off and apart from this frame the only other pic I got amounted to disappearing tail feathers.
The background is not great but sometimes there is no time to compose or move to a better angle. If I had done so, I would have missed the shot altogether.
Happy snapping.