Karma's When I Feel Like It Blog

February 20, 2012

Serendipity

Filed under: For the Birds — Karma @ 3:29 pm
Tags: ,

This morning I continued my bird count for the GBBC while drinking coffee and reading blogs.  I have a nice view of my bird feeders from where I sit while I’m at the computer.  I was reading this post by Holly and admiring her sparkly snow and a picture of a red-bellied woodpecker – frequent visitor to my feeders last winter.  I mentioned in a comment to her that I’d actually seen those woodpeckers using the same pose she had captured on my feeders, but hadn’t had my camera handy at the time.  Less than 10 minutes after I left that comment, guess what?  Yup, a couple of red-bellied woodpeckers showed up in my front yard!

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Funny thing is, I didn’t even realize at first that I had taken pictures of both of the birds.  Only when I was editing the size of the shots to put them in the slideshow did I notice that two of the shots featured a bird with a fully bright red forehead, while the others show a bird with the appearance of a “bald patch” (not really bald, of course, just gray feathers where the other has red)

I was happy to have the opportunity to catch the pictures, and add the red-bellies to my count for the GBBC.

For anyone who may be interested, here’s a list of the species I counted:

  • northern cardinal
  • blue jay
  • dark-eyed junco
  • mourning dove
  • rock pigeon
  • tufted titmouse
  • red tail hawk
  • song sparrow
  • house sparrow
  • American robin
  • European starling
  • Cooper’s hawk
  • red-bellied woodpecker

12 Comments »

  1. I see your visitor hung out on the shady side, too!! I waited quite a while for my bird to step around to the other side of the feeder, but he never did…. 😦 You did get some great shots, though – you captured his colors beautifully! Funny that you were just checking out my post when you saw your woodpecker!!

    Comment by Photo By Holly — February 20, 2012 @ 4:04 pm | Reply

  2. Nice job! Those rascals can be hard to capture. So beautiful.

    Comment by Gerry — February 20, 2012 @ 5:16 pm | Reply

  3. When we lived in Maine I kept a journal of the different varieties of birds that I saw. This has reminded me to get food in the feeders. I’ve been lazy this winter since we haven’t had much snow. Great capture of the woodpeckers.

    Comment by Becky Sue — February 20, 2012 @ 5:53 pm | Reply

  4. Awesome, Karen! We don’t have any red-bellied woodpeckers in my neck of the woods. 😦 Or, at least I haven’t seen any yet!

    Can you send yours on over? 🙂

    Comment by milkayphoto — February 20, 2012 @ 5:55 pm | Reply

  5. Great shots of the Red-bellied Woodpecker, Karen. I am jealous. We don’t have the Red-bellieds here. 🙂

    Comment by Bob Zeller — February 20, 2012 @ 7:25 pm | Reply

  6. You’ve got some nice shots there, Karen 🙂

    Comment by TheDailyClick — February 21, 2012 @ 8:35 am | Reply

  7. You have quite the list there. No nuthatches or chickadees? They are frequent visitors to my parent’s feeders for as long as I can remember. These bird counts are very valuable to wildlife scientists and managers.

    Hmm..a robin already.

    Comment by Scott Thomas Photography — February 21, 2012 @ 11:38 am | Reply

  8. Really nice shots, Karma. You have quite a list there for your count, too. 🙂

    Comment by Robin — February 21, 2012 @ 4:08 pm | Reply

  9. That is a lot of species! Nice photos. Nice to see the slide show.

    Comment by Kathy — February 21, 2012 @ 5:47 pm | Reply

  10. These are such pretty woodpeckers – we don’t get them here. I always wonder why they’re named “red-bellied” since their bellies aren’t red. Then again, why is a chickadee called a chickadee?

    Comment by Carol — February 22, 2012 @ 11:08 am | Reply

  11. Congrats on the bird list and the lovely photos.

    Comment by Sybil — February 22, 2012 @ 8:39 pm | Reply

  12. Hi everyone! I apologize for not responding to you all individually like I normally do! As I’ve explained in the post I’ve just published, I’ve felt a little rushed for time this week. Hope to get back to normal very soon. Thank you all so much for your very kind words about my photos!

    Comment by Karma — February 24, 2012 @ 9:32 am | Reply


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