Capturing Motion: Upside-Down Chickadee Photography

I love showing motion in my wildlife images. Here one of the chickadees landed upside down and I was able to capture the instant it turned to fly away from the branch. The relatively slow shutter speed created a blur in the wings as it gathered together to launch. The images below are from before and then immediately after this one. They share a bit of the moment that I was really happy to realize with these beautiful little birds.


Aspirations

A chickadee at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary flew up in front of me. Made me think of positive aspirations – onwards and upwards. A good visual to ruminate on.
Chickadees in late afternoon sunshine

Through the winter, there are chickadees that hang out in my backyard. On Sunday afternoon, I found a few of them pecking seeds out of the fresh snow below the feeder.

I took a few minutes to photograph them when the sun had dropped low enough to backlight them and the speckles of snow their pecking threw into the air.


A boreal chickadee came at the last and flitted about for a few seconds before flying off in a spray of glistening snow.



A surprising nest
In front of the patio to the front door of my house there is a stump where the previous owners had cut down what must have been a large tree. Aside from the occasional decoration, this trunk remains largely unused by us. However, we all like it so there it stays. Now, I understand why… today a pair of Boreal Chickadees started to dig out their hollow to make their nest. They carried out small clumps of wood pulp clawed out on every trip. I hope they choose to stay here.

