{"id":455,"date":"2010-02-28T20:12:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T01:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vincentmistretta.com\/blog\/?p=455"},"modified":"2010-02-28T20:12:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T01:12:58","slug":"no-place-to-hide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vincentmistretta.com\/blog\/no-place-to-hide\/","title":{"rendered":"No Place to Hide"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent snow storms along the Eastern U.S. left many people without power, telephone and dare I say it, internet service! The snow was so heavy on Friday there wasn’t even places for the birds to hide.<\/p>\n

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Black Eyed Junco and White Throated Sparrow in snow storm<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nI decided to venture out on Friday because photographing landscapes and wildlife is usually better in bad weather, much to the chagrin of the photographer. The other reason I went outside was I had seen from the kitchen window something I had never seen before. During the storm, a flock of approximately 50 European Starlings attached our bird feeders. The tree was completely covered in them. I quickly found that these birds are very skittish when it comes to people. As soon as I opened the door to go out, they flew away without me being able to make 1 click.
\nHowever, as the saying goes, all clouds do have a silver lining. As I was standing under the tree with the feeders, a Red Bellied Woodpecker flew right past my head and landed in the tree. I have been trying to photograph this bird for a year. Like the Starlings, the Red Bellied Woodpeckers don’t like people. But the combination of the commotion of the swarm of birds and heavy snow was enough to camouflage me. I was able to get the lens up before the bird knew I was there. He didn’t stay long however, just long enough.<\/p>\n

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Red Bellied Woodpecker in tree during Snow Storm<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAs I mentioned before I try to use the bad weather to take some landscape photographs. I tried my hand with a few black and whites which I thought made sense given the overcast skies and heavy snow.
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Japaneese Maple covered in Snow<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nI love trying to find interesting patterns that occur in nature. They are always there and are always changing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent snow storms along the Eastern U.S. left many people without power, telephone and dare I say it, internet service! The snow was so heavy on Friday there wasn’t even places for the birds to hide. I decided to venture out on Friday because photographing landscapes and wildlife is usually better in bad weather, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-wildlife"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t