Desperation...

I suddenly realized that it was nearly 4 in the afternoon and I had no blip.  Oh, sure, I'd been out earlier and taken a few shots of this and that, but they were all pretty close to dreadful.  And the cats were in the midst of serious naps. The sun had already slipped into an unfavorable position and a cool cold frigid breeze had kicked up.  What's a blipper to do???  Well, rush out and find the nearest bird, natch.

This time of year, there are routinely 20-30 of these little dark-eyed juncos around our property, foraging for seeds.  These common sparrows are widespread across the entire continental US during winter months and display wide color variation geographically.  There are four distinct color variations, ours being known as slate-colored or slate-backed.  Because they are always around in such big numbers in the winter months, they are a reliable blip on just about any day - which means you'll no doubt be seeing them again.  I posted a monotone version of another junco HERE on Flickr - I kind of feel like it needs more contrast or something and would be interested in any suggestions.

This photo was cropped and adjusted a bit in LR.  The most significant thing I did was use the eye-dropper tool to remove the blue cast caused by the snow in the background. The camera has an irritating way of putting a lot of blue in the snow so this tool is very helpful in rendering truer whites.  

Major progress being made in Alabama.  We are planning to move my MIL back up here so that she can be close to us.  Because of her health (mental and physical), there are a lot of logistics involved in this move, none of them easy.  However, if all goes according to the current plan, she will be residing at a very nice retirement home several miles from us by this time next month.  Major changes for all of us, needless to say.

As for me, in 48 hours, I'll be close to landing in Tucson where I have major parental hugs awaiting me!

Cheers, people.
xo
Debbi

PS:  This is the 10th yardbird to be photographed this year, and the third sparrow. You can see the whole collection HERE (#yardbird2017)