I always hear orioles before I see them. This guy was in the yard yesterday morning, so I quickly sliced a tangerine and put it out on the garden stand. In about two minutes he was there. He spent day making trips back and forth to the garden stand from the apple tree. I spent a lot of the day trying to get a good shot of him from behind a large pine tree just this side of the garden.

The photo below was taken this morning, he was back and brought a friend this time. I thought it was a female until I checked my Audubon bird book. You can’t tell so much from this shot, but another photo I took at the same time showed the one on the right holding down the tangerine  with one foot.

I am still trying to get a good shot of a red winged blackbird. So, late Sunday afternoon I took a walk down to the marsh at the far edge of the woods. The red wings were there, but too far away to get a good photo. While I was standing there just enjoying the sound of the blackbirds, a couple of tiny chickadees flew in and began to do acrobatics in the reeds in front of me. A little further away, this eastern phoebe hunted.

In a tree high above the marsh some sort of hawk watched over the water. Thank goodness, it did not catch anything while I was watching. It finally moved to the other side of the water away from a flock of crows, making their usual noise in the trees near me. I don’t usually see this much activity in the morning when I go. Guess I need to change my walking schedule. Spring turkey season is going on now, so I will be staying out of the woods for the next couple of weeks.

I saw a moose in the field behind the house this week, too. Sure don’t want to run into it in the woods, no matter how good the photos might be.

The photos from my Nikon d200 are so large that I have to keep the number stored in my iPhoto under 300 or it runs really slow. While I was getting ready to save 150 of this month’s shots on a CD, I decided to gather some of the bird photos and make them into one post. The individual photos do not click open.

April is a great for photographing birds since the trees are still bare of leaves up here in Maine. Lots of spring birds have arrived, and even more are passing through. All of these shots were taken in the yard.

Sisah, here are the names: top row, American Robin, Northern Flicker, European Starling, second row, White  Throated Sparrow, Chickadee, Chipping Sparrow, third row, Northern Mockingbird, Mourning Dove, and another shot of a mockingbird.

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Thanks to Karen at An Artist’s Garden for awarding me the Arte Pico Award. Please check out her site to read more about the award, and look at the other blogs she chose.  

A pair of mockingbirds showed up last week, and have already started nest building in this cedar bush. They were unusually quiet today while I was working outdoors. No songs, no trilling, or funny noises. I am sure the quiet won’t last.

This little guy just couldn’t be bothered yesterday. After two shots, I left him to his dinner. Guess I am used to the friendly little chickadees!