Patience
Rewarded: A Junco photo story
When the Junco dropped into the meadow thick
with grass and fireweed I was a bit
disappointed.
Babies who have already left the nest (fledged) and
are hiding in grasses are a challenge to
photograph
without better camera lenses than I use. If I was
lucky I might spot one young bird that didn't run
around
a great deal, or fly off. Although I didn't have
high hopes, at least the grasses in the shadow of
the
of cottonwood trees were thinner than a few feet
further out into the sunny meadow.
I watched the Junco make several more trips with
food in its mouth, but each time I lost sight of
the bird
after it landed and missed the exchange of food! I
looked over, around and past, and had nearly
given up finding them when the parent made another
food trip. This time I had a direct line of
sight
when it landed--and disappeared behind a stick in
the grass.
I missed it again but, this time when the parent
flew up from the grass I had the area located.
After watching the area carefully for a few more
minutes to make sure I hadn't missed
a fledgling in "freeze" mode, I stepped around the
stick for a closer look. There,
in a hollow under an old grass-covered Cottonwood
branch
was a small, shadowed
opening.
All photos and narratives
contained in this document and/or in the
Birds of Interior Alaska website were created by
and copyrighted to ©Jim Gilbert.
6/2001.