Sunday, November 11, 2007

Irruption- The Red-breasted Nuthatch

I've been looking for a red-breasted nuthatch ever since Jim McCormac said he had seen a few at our ODNR offices here in Columbus about a month ago. I struck out at work, but did manage to finally see and photograph this tiny little nuthatch at Blendon Woods Metropark yesterday. Supposedly, these birds "irrupt" out of the north woods when pine cone seed production is low, and, this year is one such year. I haven't heard anything about seed production in the north country, but there have been plenty of reports of these birds across Ohio.

At Blendon, this individual was staking out the feeder in the Walden Wildlife Refuge near Thoreau Lake (a small reservoir, technically.



These birds are very handsome. The black and white head, reddish brown belly, and the slate blue back make quite a color combination.



My camera has a three shots per second burst mode. It is fantastic for taking photos of birds. Now if I only had that 300 mm F/4 Canon lens...this photo would be all that sharper (while I'm dreaming, it would be even more sharp with the 300 f/2.8!)

5 comments:

  1. Great pictures of this little guy! He's soooo cute too. Good thing your camera is fast, because they are too.

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  2. They are really fast! I took about 50 pictures of this bird and most of them were blurry because he was moving around so much. Thank goodness for digital cameras. I can't imagine how much film you would have to go through to get just a few good shots. Today the bad ones just get deleted......

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  3. These little guys visit our feeder quite a bit down here in Alabama. We see quite a few White-Breasted Nuthatches as well. Bird photography can be really tough. :)

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  4. I live in northwest Ohio and I saw these this summer and was taken by their beauty. I got a pretty good shot of one through our dining room window. You can see it here on my blog.

    I spoke with a birder in Columbus in October and she said there had been many reports of summer sightings around Ohio this year.

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  5. Tom I live in southern Clermont Co. Oh. I have been regularly seeing a red breasted Nuthatch at my feeder.

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