It's a close run thing, but I think this is my favorite picture from my expedition over the last couple of days. This one has a bit of a story attached to it, as well as a bit of serendipity and a lot of luck.
Believe it or not, this is another in-town picture. As previously attested to, I did not have my Bird Lens on me at the time. Nevertheless, I heard a squawking from a tree across the street and was doing my level best to locate whoever the heck it was making that racket.
In that tree I spotted this, which I believe is a Lesser Goldfinch. Interesting, but definitely not the source of the noise.
But then, nestled against the trunk of the tree and hidden nearly perfectly, I chanced to spot this example of Callipepla californica. I looked at him. He looked at me. At that exact moment and before I could bring my camera to bear, he went "Ack!" and flew away.
Darn.
On the way back to the car, though, I heard the same plaintive cry coming from down the street.
Lo and behold, there he was sitting on a dead branch on a tree right there out in the open in somebody's yard. And he hadn't spotted me. I got off this photo and then crept closer slowly, managing to get around to the other side without scaring him off.
Here he is from the left, now, framed against the steel roof of a house right behind and down the hill a little ways. He was certainly watching me, but did not move. So as quickly albeit as quietly as I could, I scuttled back to the car and grabbed the big glass, did a very fast tactical lens change, and went sneaking back. He was still there, in that very same spot, eyeing me pointedly but still apparently unwilling to budge. So I had plenty of time to get into position and fiddle with all my settings, resulting in the headline photo you saw at the top.
I got two others during this trip. One was this guy, who was very well hidden in some trees on the top of a little knoll and sporadically calling out, and we heard him for quite some time before I finally figured out exactly where he was:
And the other was this one, which was definitely a different bird, who kept scurrying across the trail but disappearing before I could get a bead on him or possibly her until I finally managed to snap this one on the move:
The full size version of the headline image is here.
we have a bunch in my neighborhood
there's a couple that makes a home of our yard every year. last year there was a couple pairs and at one point there was at least (what I could count) 11 of them. 4 adults and the rest little babies
the babies are so damn cute, like so small and just poofs with feet