Mockingbird

After WRPerry went back to these trees that we visited a few weeks ago and told me about all the bird activity, I decided to brave the bitter cold and go there this morning.  It was worth it. There were Bluebirds, Mockingbirds, Chickadees and a Northern Flicker, all enjoying the berries. 

It was very cold, in the teens with wind chill in the single digits (that’s Fahrenheit, folks, so about -13 Celsius).  I wore multiple layers, long underwear and still had to go back to the car periodically to warm up. 

While I was shooting continuously with my Sony A7R2, I experienced a problem that was new to me.  The camera would shoot for while and then give me a message that there was a problem and that I needed to turn the camera off and back on.  In fact, I had to remove the battery and reinsert it to get the message to disappear.  This happened several times, and more and more frequently until finally, I stopped using it.   Fortunately, I had the RX10iv with me and I was able to continue shooting.  When I got home, I googled this and apparently, others have experienced this same problem in extreme cold when shooting in continuous mode. At least I know nothing is broken. 

I have been trying to identify this tree as it is a kind that I have never seen before. After searching the web,  I finally posted a picture on the Capital Naturalist Facebook page.  Someone actually knew exactly where they were and they were identified as an invasive species called Castor Aralia trees.