Love the sparkle of those tiny diamonds

This photo was taken on 23 November 2014, when I went for part of a birding walk with friends. I can’t remember whose hand you see in this photo, but hopefully the owner of the hand will recognize herself when I send this photo round to everyone.

During the long, cold winter months, these tiny birds are just 24 hours away from death - they need to be able to get enough food to create a layer of fat on their body to keep warm enough to survive. In the winter, their brain expands in order to let them remember where they hide every single seed that they find. Wish this happened to humans, too - I could do with that all year round : )

I was lucky enough to get a quick sighting of the Long-tailed Weasel that day, too, when I called in after the walk. Only managed to take a handful of shots and most didn’t come out well enough to post, but it was still nice to see this little animal in its beautiful white, winter coat. Also good to see a few friends down there as well. I wonder if anyone has been seeing the Weasel in the last 7-10 days or so. I called in briefly three days more recently, as I was in the area, but there were no signs of the Weasel or any tracks in the snow. If we don’t see it again, we can be so happy that it gave us some much-appreciated photo opps.

"The Black-capped Chickadee is notable for its capacity to lower its body temperature during cold winter nights, its good spatial memory to relocate the caches where it stores food, and its boldness near humans (they can feed from the hand)." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-capped_Chickadee

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/black-capped_chickadee/id