Mike Powell

As I have noted in several recent posts, I have real troubles spotting birds when the trees are fully leafed out. In other seasons, when the trees are bare, birds tend to fly to new perches when they detect my presence and I can often track them when they are in flight and follow them visually to their new perches. Now, however, the birds seem to remain in place and sing loudly, but remain invisible to my eyes.

Last week I managed to capture an image of an American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) when he popped into view momentarily outside of the tree canopy at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The little goldfinch was visible for only a short period of time, but fortunately I was looking in the right direction at that moment.

Later in the day I spotted another goldfinch perched in a distant tree. For some reason, the tree had no leaves, so it was easy for me to see the bird. I grabbed a shot and tried to move a little closer, but the bird could see my movement and immediately flew away. I hesitated to post the second photo below, because the bird is so small in the frame, but decided that I really liked the contrast between the bright yellow of the bird and the starkness of the branches and the white sky, a nice counterpoint to the lushness of the vegetation in the first photo.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.