Description

Every day I take a short hike to a nearby river on our property and have set up bird feeding station there to help the birds make it through the harsh, Maine winter. One day, while feeding, I simply put some food in my hand to see if I could coax the chickadees to come into my hand for seeds/nuts. Over the course of weeks, I was able to get several chickadees to come into my hand for feeding, but the nuthatches (white-breasted and red-breasted) would only sit and stare as the chickadees came and went from my hand until one day a female, red-breasted nuthatch came in for a closer look. Ever since that day of gaining her trust, she doesn’t even hesitate to come in for a hand-feeding, and her male partner has also started coming in. The day I took these pics, I was trying to get an action shot of her coming in and was able to capture this action series of pics. I especially like the look back at me, in the photo in the lower left, as she took off and flew away.

Category

Category 6: Birds in Flight

Species

• Red-breasted Nuthatch

Tags

• Red-breasted nuthatch
• hand feeding