Jaci Dawn

The Bushtits came to visit me today.

It has been three days of edging over that 80-degree mark and I am in heaven. SUNSHINE and I can actually go around without having to wear a sweater. Hear me sigh in contentment?

I didn’t think the day could get much better but when I set the sprinkler out this evening, it did.

I no sooner set the sprinkler than I heard a familiar “pip! pip! pip!’ as a flock of Bushtits hurried in to take advantage of the sprinkler.

I grabbed my camera and attempted to get some close-ups of these tiny, nervous, “drab” little birds as they flitted around in the camellia and the Hawthorne catching bugs and drops of water. I shot 30 photos.

I miss my old 35mm when I am faced with something like this. I could “push” the f-stop and I usually had 400ASA film in my camera just for shots like the Bushtits in motion. My current cheap Canon Rebel XT DSLR doesn’t afford me the option (or it is broken, like the “manual” setting on the lens is).

Still… the Canon served me well tonight. Out of 30 shots, I got 4 that I am happy with.

Where’s the bird? There are three of them in the photo. You’ll have to click on the photo to view it full size, but I promise you there are three little Bushtits in there.

A Bushtit spreads his feathers.

She has a miller (moth) in her beak.

I like this photo precisely because I do not think of Bushtits as “drab” little birds. They’re beautiful little creatures that are no larger than a hummingbird and they tend to fly in large family groups, but I simply would not refer to them as “drab” or “plain”. Charming little grey birds.

This is the photo I like the best. Two Bushtits playing in the sprinkler while one sits on the branch and enjoys the water. Click on the photo to view it full size: you can see the water from the sprinkler in the air.

I did not know I had that photo until I downloaded all 30. I knew I had some of Bushtits in mid-air but I was certain they were out-of-focus and far too blurry to use. But there was this.

That makes for a pretty “perfect” summer day!

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At last! Something worthwhile to write about: birds. Specifically, bushtits.

They are one of my favorites. I’ll let you read up on them at Wikipedia and Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They are as tiny as the small hummingbirds, but are as dull grey as hummers are brilliant. What bushtits lack for in color, however, they make up for in nervous flocks. You can never quite count all the bushtits that flit through at one time as they are constantly moving: flitting from branch to branch or leaf to leaf or bush to bush, searching for small spiders, ants, and whatever other insect is available.

When they flit through our yard, I am always held in amazement by the acrobatics, their cheerful gregarious numbers, and their seeming fearlessness. In the summer, I like to water the tree peonies in the early evening so the water pools in the brown leaves and the bushtits will come and take baths. They come and each bird has a peony leaf to bath in. They weigh so little that the leaves hardly dip.

They come to our suet feeder in the winter: I have counted as many as 17 vying for position on a 6″x6″x2″ suet holder.

Today there were only one or two in the suet, the rest were inside the rhododendron hunting the small spiders that are starting to come out. I grabbed my camera and hoped for the best.

I followed them around the yard, capturing only one bird at a time and oftentimes only the empty air. The one that landed in the Hawthorne held his ground for the longest time, flitting from branch to branch, but then – suddenly – he was gone. And in the dizzying heights of the neighbor’s flowering plum that hangs over our yard, I saw another one.

All around me, I could hear them: tsit! tsit! tsit! Maybe they were saying, “Pssst! She’s here! Here! Here!” in a wild game of catch-me-if-you-can.

I took 22 photos.

I chased them from the rhododendron to the feeder to the Hawthorne and on to the holly before I gave up and came inside to download my photos.

Maybe I got one good picture. And I did. Right there in the rhododendron.

But I didn’t see it until I enlarged the photo.

One tiny little bird with a long narrow tail, a slender beak, and plain brown-and-grey feathers, holding still just long enough for the lens to focus and capture him.

One of my very favorite birds.

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