Bushtits, News Bringers
Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus) are among our favourite birds. Even one of the dolls that lives here who is also a frequent blogger, is named after them. Yesterday it seemed as if they were deliverers of good news as well.
These birds are often seen on the feeder, and a true delight each time. They are often just a ball of motion, with can be seen only as a fringe of perky tails with not a corner of the feeder showing. They are there quickly and quickly gone.
Yesterday I was in the middle of photographing them when the phone rang – it was my daughter telling me of the birth of her daughter, our first grandchild. The baby was making little snuffling noises next to the phone – totally delightful. Naturally we went over to her house (she had a home birth) to meet the new member of the family, taking the camera. I did not even think about the camera settings so it is a good thing that they were appropriate to that task! One bonus was that it was set to multiple exposures in an attempt to capture the birds in flight (they move so fast I can’t think of any other way than sheer good luck to get them on the wing). That is a setting I just never use but I did get even more baby pictures than I set out to do! Had I not been ‘interrupted’, I might have a better in-flight shot, I was just working on that when the phone rang.
The feeder is hanging in the apple tree outside the large window of the room where I sit while blogging, and eating, and doing most other things indoors. It can be seen from the kitchen area too. Yesterday the Bushtits seemed to be around for longer, coming back to the feeder many times, and the light was very nice so I thought I would try to photograph them. I put my old 200mm lens on the camera, opened the window a crack and tried to get some pictures while standing next to the wood stove (roughing it in my blind), all hand-held. I really need a longer lens for these tiny critters, but they just are not seen except in a crowd and properly should be shown with their fellows, as far as I am concerned (see, I am not even using this an excuse to run out and get more gear, I must mean it).
Having said that, I have isolated the top picture into a few detail crops. Due to the way I was taking the pictures and the consequent need for quite a bit of sharpening the details pictures are a bit grainy. But, I like them anyway.
We have put a cage around the feeder to discourage larger birds and squirrels. The starlings can eat one of these cakes of food in a matter of minutes, crows too. Some other larger birds like flickers and woodpeckers find a way of reaching in, so we get to see them and don’t lose out too much by encouraging the small birds. The cage does make for busy photographs though.
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To see larger versions in the gallery below, click on any thumbnail, use the arrows to navigate and escape to return to this page.
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Canon 5DMkii, SMC Takumar 200mm/f4 lens, ISO400, f8, top 1,250th, bottom 1/400th.
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burnt embers 
These are wonderful shots, Ehpem! Really well done, especially considering they were kind of done using one hand to hang off the side of your house and the other to do all the photography bits. 🙂
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Thank you Toad! I was being a bit lazy and not using a tripod – that would have meant moving the chair, crowding the woodstove and leaving the window open when it’s cold outside. So instead I left the window closed and off the latch, when the birds showed up I quietly slid it open the width of my lens.
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They are incredibly sweet! Congratulations, Ephem! : )
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Thank you Karen. These birds are such welcome visitors. They also visit the hummingbird feeder sometimes. The hummingbirds don’t like it at all, especially at this time of the year when they have few options.
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I almost forgot – Congratulations on the new addition! Exciting news.
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Thanks! It is very exciting. I am thrilled, though it pushes me into a category that I have no choice over and never imagined either.
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Great series of shots especially the one of the bird in flight. I’ve not seen a cage like that before. Is it home made.
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Hi Ken, and thanks. Yes, we made it. The hardware cloth was fine for squirrels, but not starlings, so we added the diagonal wires to keep them out. There is a flap that opens so we can renew the inner part (which is commercial). Works fine now. Flickers have found if they stand on the bottom edge of the cage that it pushed it over bring the inner part closer to their beak and that way they can reach in with their long bills. Crows are too heavy for that and can’t really reach in anyway as their bills are too short. Starlings sometimes can, but barely and they give up and go elsewhere.
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Such a rounded little bird! I think they are a western North American bird; I’m sure I’ve never seen them here, more’s the pity.
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Hi Lynn. In the colder regions they are in the west, but further south, like in Texas, they get nearly to the Atlantic, according to on-line resources. Like this one.
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