True Blue...

I named my journal "Life's Little Moments" because part of the joy of photography for me is preserving those small special moments in life. And, boy, did this qualify!

I was passing through the kitchen to get tea this morning when I glanced out and saw a pair of jays on the cherry tree - and just as I looked, one was feeding the other! I dropped to a blipper-crouch and scuttled across the floor to grab the nearest camera (thank goodness it was the D600) and scuttled back hoping they'd do the pair feeding thing again. And they did!! I have only seen this behavior in the blue jays 3 times and have never been quick enough to catch it.

Blue jays mate for the season and will often have the same mate for life. In the spring, the female makes her final choice of a mate and then the couple starts the process of nesting. And, sometimes, the male will feed the female during the pair bonding process, which is what you see here. The male is on the bottom, and he is placing a morsel of corn in the female's beak.

So, oh, wow! This was a special shot for me. Taken through the window, and through a damned spider web that was on the outside of the window. However, with a little tweak to the shadows and highlights, it is a an okay shot. This one is definitely more about the moment and less about the photography. I hope you enjoy it - and be sure to tell your special someone that you love them (maybe you can even feed them a little something!)

Thanks for sending my fighting finches to the spotlight yesterday! Last evening, the goldfinches were joined by several pine siskins which was a cool surprise. The pine siskins aren't normally in our area, but last winter was an irruptive year with a lot of the winter finches moving much further south than usual. It's an unusual enough sighting that I've reported it.

And, hey, it's Friday!! We appear to be headed to a beautiful springlike weekend so I plan to be outside as much as possible. Happy weekend!