A bird in the hand...

The weather forecast called for rain and +6 today. It was enough that there was a chance that there might be fog along the lake shore for Jane to get up at the crack of silly and meet me at Lynde Shores this morning for a couple of hours of photography. We very nearly had the entire place to ourselves. Everyone else must have stayed home - including much of the wildlife.

We saw the usual suspects, of course, with a couple of interesting exceptions.




There was this poor fellow above who was missing part of his beak. There was a female mallard who was missing a foot, but she seemed to get around just fine and there was a black squirrel with only a third of a tail, although by the girth of him, it wasn't affecting his ability to eat at all! Makes one wonder what happened to the poor creatures...


Then there was this guy - not a sob story, just a strange thing to see. I have never seen this ever before, and I've seen my fair share of chickadees.



This is a white-tailed black cap chickadee. Only one I saw there, and, the only one I've ever seen in my life. Apparently they are quite rare, but are known to happen from time to time from the brief bit of research I did online when I got home.



Here's the rest of the day's catch:

- Paula