I had such a successful day last week photographing the male Anna’s hummingbird that I spent portions of following days (several hours all told) attempted to obtain more photographs.  Unfortunately the bird has decided to remain on his high perch and I haven’t once found him back down where those last photographs were taken.  However the activity has kept me in the neighborhood with my camera at the ready,.

On January 21 I happened on a large flock of Pine siskins in a what is apparently a Red alder tree growing in a wetland area.  I was able to park very close to the birds (which were often at my same level) and photograph them at will for 20-30 minutes from a very close distance.  Upon processing the photos at home I found I had taken 135 photographs… necessitating a lot of processing work.  I managed to cull those photographs down to 48 and I should probably take another cut at it.  Here are some of the best…

While I was exploring the neighborhood I drove to Cap Sante Marina to try to get photos of   a pair of Hooded mergansers and Red-breasted mergansers that were touring the marina.  While stalking those birds a Common loon stealthily surfaced very near me so I grabbed a couple of photos of it…

I’m still trying to get back to some of my New Mexico photos but it just hasn’t happened yet due to these local distractions!