A sweet for my sweet...

I just love this time of year when the birds start exhibiting courtship behaviors.  I was lucky to catch this shot, quite by accident really.  I noticed the female sitting on the cherry tree and thought I'd try to get a shot just for the heck of it (not that I don't have a gazillion shots of House Finches).  As I was focusing in on her, the male hopped over with a shelled sunflower seed which he then presented to her.  The entire thing took about a second and I managed exactly 3 shots, this being the best.

Had I been paying more attention to the male, I would have seen him pick up a seed and carefully, using his tongue and that sturdy beak, extricate the tender meat from the seed.  Cardinals (which are loosely related to finches) do the same thing.  Anyway, although it's not a technically great photo, it's my moment for today.  

It's warming up today - all the way into the low 40's and the snow is slowly melting from some of the surfaces.  This doesn't mean an end to snowy shots anytime soon, however, based on the snow cover in our garden!  

Hubs is getting ready to go pick MIL up to bring her over to our house for a few hours.  While she's here, I'm going to work on a "craft" project which involves hot-gluing some dried moss to a branch.  Yea, this has all the earmarks of being a disaster, but I'm committed.  And if you're wondering why (c'mon, you know you are) - I read an interesting article by a photographer about creating natural looking perches for backyard birds.  I already use branches pretty liberally around the feeders, but hadn't though to put moss on them.  So, stay tuned...

Thanks for the love on yesterday's cardinal.  I think its probably impossible to take a bad picture of one, truthfully.  

xo
Debbi