Brace For The Cold - November Bird Watching

It's getting dark, and the snow is still falling. Our trees in the back are holding lots of American Robin who are more than willing to pose for photographs and not fly away - their tolerance of me approaching must be inversely related to the temperature outside. I caught a couple of posed subjects, a robin and a Cedar Waxwing. I didn't know what the smaller clump of feathers were until I downloaded my shots and saw the bright yellow band on the tail - a waxwing. The birds are all perched with the feathers ruffled in an obvious attempt to increase the R-value of their natural insulation. A nice narrative about birds weathering the winter cold can be found here, and another more lay version here. By the way, I just restocked the bird feeders, and added a new peanut dispenser as well.

American Robin in the cold

Cedar Waxwing

The map above his found here, and is found with the link above with the explanation of R-values. As you can see, Colorado falls in the 4th, 5th, and 6th of seven coldest regions in the continental United States - poor little birds.

Autumn Birds at 40.5073N, 105.0406W, and 4,965.68ft

My Altitude iPhone app

The Northern Flicker that taps on the roof above our bedroom was at it this morning - actually, more of a knock than a tap. I went outside to chase him away, and took my camera along in case I was able to sneak up on him from below when I came out of the sliding patio door. He was off in an instant, flying north to parts unknown. But as it turned out, there was a diversity of other birds on the ground, in the tree, and working away at the bird feeder. There must have been a half dozen Cedar Waxwing working over the juniper berries on the tree beside our neighbor's house, a few Red Breasted Nuthatch whose normal behavior is to grab a seed and then fly to a tree branch to break the seed open, several American Robin flying in and out of the trees and not working the lawn for a meal, a Dark-eyed Junco on the ground, a House Sparrow at the finch feeder, and an American Gold Finch in its winter brown coloration, looking more like some kind of sparrow than the bright yellow of summer.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Cedar Waxwing

American Robin

American Goldfinch (foreground)

House Sparrow

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The My Altitude iPhone application has turned out to be a useful tool when traveling around mountainous Colorado when wanting to check out my elevation.