Carolina Wild Photo (the blog)

For my second installment I’ve pulled photos from previous years when there was snow. The birdbath is a haven for the birds during these icy days. With my feeders nearby, the running water is a bonus for my little feathered visitors. I’m repeating the birdbath photo taken with an old cell phone that I showed in the previous post to remind you what it can look like in a big snow. This is why I can get shots when the ground is covered in snow and frozen over. Like this little Bluebird, everything in the area is drawn to this birdbath when conditions are so harsh.

In this photo my resident mated pair of Bluebirds brave the cold and ice to get a drink of water after a snack of meal worms. Not visible in the photo is running water, behind the snow piled around the edges of the birdbath. This pair has raised at least three broods a year since March of 2015 when I put up my first Bluebird house. Within a few days of installing the birdhouse the Bluebirds were already checking it out, and soon moved in, returning to it every year since.
One of my favorites at the birdbath is the Cardinals. Particularly in winter, the male’s brilliant red color is especially cheery on a bleak winter day. Even the female Cardinals, with their feathers of red and golden brown are colorful enough to brighten a snowy scene. Between feeders and the birdbath I often have three or four pairs of Cardinals in view at the same time.

I’m particularly interested in shots of the Cardinals in the snow since they make great images for my custom Christmas cards. I try to get new images every year when it snows so I have a selection to choose from for the next year’s card design. It all comes down to whether we have enough snow in a particular year to show up in the photos. It’s always a plus if I can take some photos while it’s snowing.
This Goldfinch image was taken during a snow, but it was a light snow, and the snowflakes don’t show up very well. Of course, there are times when it’s snowing so hard the flakes between the bird and the camera are just big blurry white spots, and that’s something of a problem as well. And then there is the poor lighting from overcasts skies that makes it difficult to get good exposures and shutter speeds.

I get a good variety of birds at the birdbath, even in the snow, but obviously some are more colorful than others. The rich red accents of the male House Finch are more photogenic than the female’s simple brown coloration, for example. It takes that rich pop of color to make the otherwise drab winter browns and plain white of ice and snow into an interesting photo.

My little heated birdbath has provided me with many nicely detailed closeups in all seasons. Even when the birds don’t visit the feeders so much in the summer while food is plentiful, they always come for a drink of water, or a cooling bath. It’s the ultimate gathering spot all year round, and never fails to entertain me.

Yep, that’s what I said, a “heated” birdbath. It’s really not that fancy, but it was designed specifically for bird photography, like the Bluebird image here.

The heating comes from an aquarium heater unit placed in the birdbath reservoir next to the fountain pump that continually circulates the water. It hardly makes it a “spa”, but it does keep the water from freezing in the winter. So far it has worked at least down to 5 degrees overnight, and even when it’s below freezing continually, every day for over two weeks in a row, with snow and sleet.
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I had seen Bluebirds occasionally visiting our bird bath for the past few years, but otherwise I hardly ever saw them. Last Spring I finally broke down and bought a Bluebird house and put it up in the yard. Almost immediately I saw a pair of Bluebirds checking it out, and I believe they raised a brood. However, I never actually saw any little ones and was afraid to investigate for fear of scaring them away. This Spring I fashioned a snake guard for the Bluebird house post, and then made a little bowl feeder for dried meal worms which I placed some 12 feet in front of the birdhouse.

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