Thrushes, Wrens and Wind

We are having more wild weather - this time wind. On last night's news they equated it to the Inaugral Day storm, but so far not quite that bad, but I've been warily watching trees this morning, hoping none fall on my house. It's pretty scary when the wind blows 100' Douglas Fir trees like they are sticks.

Of course, it doesn't stop the birds. That pretty male Anna's hummingbird was here before it was even daylight this morning. I could see his beautiful red shiny gorget and red head from the light reflected from my office. He was just gorgeous. He was here yesterday, too, and that was the first time in a while that I have seen him. Mostly I see the little immature male and one female.

And very early this morning there were two Varied Thrushes here and they were right up here by my office window. They don't normally come that close to the house. They usually stay back under the Holly Tree like the Spotted Towhee does. But I am trying out some new bird seed and they seem to like it. It's a mix of white millet, cracked corn, striped sunflower, black oil sunflower, and sunflower chips. All the birds seem to like it, but the squirrels more or less leave it alone, so that's a real plus.

The other day, I was trying to take pictures of some Bush Tits. I just have a hard time with them because they flit around so fast - hardly stay in one place long enough to take a picture and there are so many of them in a flock that it seems like the flock is constantly in motion. But for the first time I saw them go to the seed feeders. They usually just go for the suet. So they were more or less still and I snapped quite a few pictures. I also noticed the Bewicks Wren was back. But he was here and then gone and I didn't have a chance to get a picture at all. I just love the little wrens, so I was really disappointed.

However, when I uploaded my pictures and looked at the shots I had taken of the Bush Tits in the platform feeder with the cage on top of it, lo and behold, there was the little wren in amongst the Bush Tits. And the wren was in perfect focus and the Bush Tits of course were not (as usual). I was thrilled - now I just have to get that photo editing software so I can crop and edit out the blurry parts.

With the upgraded computer, my old photo editing software will not work with Windows XP, it was an old Adobe Photo Deluxe 2000 and Adobe stopped making and supporting that in 2002, but I never upgraded because I liked it. Now I HAVE to upgrade because it simply won't work with Windows XP. But I have checked out Adobe Photo Elements and it will do all the same things and more and is similar in style to Photo Deluxe, so I shouldn't have any problems using it. Now I just have to get busy and order it! The photo editing software that came with my camera and my new computer do not have the same flexibility or capabilities - they are very simplistic and generic.

• Posted at Wednesday, December 13, 2006 10:35 AM
• In General Category | Permalink