Winter chickadee

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Winter chickadee

January 31, 2014 by Mike Powell

Another photo of a chickadee? Chickadees are so common that they fade into the background to the point where we no longer notice them. Nobody would travel a great distance to see a Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinens) like this one and there were no throngs of curious spectators to ask me what I was photographing.

What was the attraction for me? One of my fellow bloggers, Mr. K.A. Brace, a thoughtful and insightful poet who writes in a blog called The Mirror Obscura, posted a poem today entitled “The Brilliance” that really resonated with me. In the poem, he spoke of the “brilliance of the ordinary.” I encourage you to check out this poem and other wonderful poems—one of the cool features of most of the blog postings is that they feature an audio clip of the poet reading the featured poem.

“The brilliance of the ordinary”—I love that combination of words. Children (and pets) approach life with boundless curiosity and endless fascination with the most mundane, ordinary aspects of our everyday world. I want to regain more of that childlike sense of wonder.

Posted in Art, Birds, Nature, Photography, poetry, wildlife, Winter | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Carolina Chickadee, chickadee, Poecile carolinensis, Runnymede, winter | 11 Comments

11 Responses

on January 31, 2014 at 10:20 am | Reply krikitarts

We would all do well to regard the world, and each other, with far less complacency than seems the norm these days. Great post, Mike.
- on January 31, 2014 at 10:27 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Gary. I knew that you were a kindred spirit for my thoughts on this topic.
on January 31, 2014 at 11:12 am | Reply K. A. Brace

I love chickadees Mike. Nice shot. Next to sparrows they are my favorite bird. >KB
- on February 1, 2014 at 7:48 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I too enjoy sparrows and take lots of photos of them. I used to think of them as nondescript brown birds, but as I have looked and them more closely and observed them at length, I’ve discovered the diversity and personalities of the individual birds.
on January 31, 2014 at 11:14 am | Reply judysbirds

Very thoughtful. I love the phrase, brilliance of the ordinary. Would that we all take a few moments, a few seconds each day to ponder on the brilliance of what we encounter each day. Thanks for the post!
on January 31, 2014 at 11:50 am | Reply Lyle Krahn

Brilliant.
on January 31, 2014 at 3:37 pm | Reply afrenchgarden

I like your chickadees and I’ve never seen one, in the feather that is. They are beautiful, common or not.
- on January 31, 2014 at 7:20 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  I like them a lot too. There is something simple and elegant about black and white!
on January 31, 2014 at 7:16 pm | Reply Dan Antion

Is this the same as the Black-capped Chickadee? We see those up here and it looks familiar. In any case, it’s a great shot.
- on January 31, 2014 at 7:19 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  There are some minor differences between the two, but the range is one of the primary differentiating characteristics.
on February 1, 2014 at 8:18 am | Reply New Hampshire Garden Solutions

I like that poem. I also like chickadees. It doesn’t feel like spring has really arrived unless I hear the mating call of the black capped chickadee.