A grey and cloudy day, but...

...no more snow. All day it looked like it would snow, but the weather people had said it wouldn't, and it didn't. So I guess they do get it right occasionally. To give them their due, Cleveland is a very challenging place to forecast weather. Located on the south shore of Lake Erie, it is subject to "lake effect weather," most notably, lake effect snow. When a weather system from the north (Canada) moves across the big lake, it is very likely to pick up a lot of moisture from the lake and then drop it off when it reaches land. That would be on us! People living a few miles south of us often get even more snow than we do because they are at a slightly higher elevation, resulting in more precipitation. The lake effect is what causes us to have so many grey days in the winter. Residents of counties south of us will see much more sun, while we are experiencing gloomy, grey skies. Cleveland is a great place to live three seasons out of four; winter is questionable (in my opinion), although snow helps a lot (again, in my opinion).

That's enough about meteorology, and anyway it has nothing to do with the picture I chose to post for today's blip. Despite the gloomy skies and the early arrival of dusk, I was happy with the results of my photowalk. I am working on several goals: to improve my focus on the birds (they move around a lot); to get the catchlight (glint) in the dark little eyes of the chickadees; and, as often as possible, to provide some background or foreground context for the birds I blip.

So today I concentrated on focus, turned on my flash to create the catchlight, and bent my knees to get a better background behind the birds, and I came home happy with several keepers that met these criteria. This hungry nuthatch is one of them. Thank goodness I can still bend my knees and, when necessary, get down on them. That helps a lot in blipping birds!