Meanwhile...back at the park...

Who's my buddy?

We went off trail for part of our walk and discovered a bounty of brave Black-capped Chickadees

willing to get real close and see if we had anything for them.

Bob hid in the Doodles coat pocket, he knows the wrath of the Chickadee!

If you read my post of a few days ago, "Birding with Bob", you will remember I mentioned our bird walk. Surprise, surprise! Even with Bob tagging along, we saw a few birds! It was a warm and bright afternoon for a change, almost a shock to the system.

Since we are back in snow storm mode today, I thought I would post a few of the photos from the weekend....without Bob.

*Please note the color of the sky in the background of some of these shots...we won't see that again for a few weeks...ahhh, memories...

Fast food for the Chickadee!

I'm not positive, but doesn't he resemble Aldo Leopold?

Lesson #1- This is a Downy Woodpecker, short bill, black spots on the tail (generally all that I see), maybe Robert Jr.

Lesson #2- This is a Hairy Woodpecker, LONG bill, sparkly white booty.
And that's the easy way to tell them apart. So there. Lesson over.

Lesson #3- Male has a red spot on the back of his head, female has her mouth open.

Guess why the male has the red spot...

yep, getting hit by the female for making wise cracks like this. Ow.

Oooh, a Red-bellied Woodpecker showing it's red belly!

Woodpeckers are for people that don't have their own...

Anyway...

We spotted this Red-tailed Hawk carrying nesting material. Oboy! Spring is near!

And here's the nest in the top of a very tall pine tree.

Thanks to Penny O'Connor from WCAS for showing us where it was!

There were a whole lot of White-breasted Nuthatches doing the Nuthatch thing

...you know...not sitting in one place for any longer than a millisecond!

This one was banded, but I couldn't catch it in one place long enough to read the number... I need to take a speed reading course.

I could have sworn I heard K.C. and the Sunshine Band singing "Shake your booty" in the background...