Snowed In...Thankfully!

Pine siskin            9 December 2012

A beautiful and peaceful day, we were visited by a flock of Pine Siskins. 

In the natural world, autumn is a time to think about winter, to prepare for quiet days of snowed-in feasts.  As the first major snow fell in Northwest Wisconsin, we were thankful to find ourselves somewhat prepared.   I put bird feed out by the lilacs and settled in for a quiet day.  Snow shoveling is done by muscle here, so I took some time to gather up power in the comfort and warmth of the house.   Cindy saw the importance of getting the cross-country skis down from the garage loft.  Finally, we had an excuse to stay home, to stay put, to be silent and still.

 

Perhaps it is now cliché to talk of a cleansing snow, but it is the solitude and silence that cleanses the mind and soothes the heart.   Time is granted.  Precious time. 

 

 

I waited for the chickadees and the nuthatches, but they didn’t arrive.  Fluffed out on a branch or piled into a bluebird box, perhaps, the local birds were gathering up power too.   In a flurry of busy wings, a flock of 17 Pine Siskins descended upon our feeder and provided an afternoon of entertainment. 

 

They fed in phases, digesting and preening and drinking snow between feasts. Our lilac, laden with snow, became a windbreak and a place of refuge for the birds between feedings.  Tame and from the wild north, they allowed us to view them from the deck, just an arm’s length away, and without a care in the world.

 

 

Pine Siskin drinking from the snow...

All images were made with a beautifully refurbished Canon 7D and Canon 300mm f4 IS lens mounted on a Gitzo tripod. The 7D allowed me to shoot confidently at ISO 800 in the dark and overcast snowy conditions.  I opened up and overexposed 2 stops to add light to the siskins and to allow the snow to be exposed as white instead of gray.  In post-processing, I added some saturation and a pulled the shadows just a hair.  I made these images from the comfort of my kitchen table, the sliding door open, my tripod legs at the edge of the deck, and a pair of mocassins keeping my toes warm.  Outside, everything was muffled and quiet.  Peace on Earth.