I love New England in the Winter.

The crisp air brings birds out that we don’t normally get in warmer months, and keeping the feeders well stocked helps as well.  

Nothing I’ve photographed here took me far from my car– some are from the driveway and some are from driving around in New Hampshire.  Given that the temperatures around here have dropped into the negatives frequently in the last month, it’s good not to be walking very far.  

A quick note: these are all smaller versions of the image; clicking on them gets you to the full-sized version.  

The picture above is of this bird:

                               

                               

                               

When I got home Friday morning, it was in the tree near the feeders.  I spotted it and kind of stalked it while it came out to eat.  If you’re familiar with it at all, you probably know exactly what it is.  If not, it’s a good bird ID exercise.

I’ve never managed to get a Hoary Redpoll at the feeders, but we occasionally get irruptions (bursts of movement into a region of birds not usually in that region) of common redpolls.  There were two at our feeders a few weeks ago– it was a dark and cloudy day and this is the best I did:

                               

We get white-breasted nuthatches throughout the year, but I love photographing them in Winter:

                               

This Barred owl was hanging out on a low branch in New Hampshire, not far from where I live:

                               

And this Barred Owl is sitting outside my window as I type this:

                               

Right now the snow is so high in our driveway that it’s hard to get pictures of the birds on the ground, but fortunately I was able to get this Northern Cardinal:

                               

And this finch, which comes with a quiz: is this a house finch or a purple finch?  Show your work.

                               

But the real treat from Friday was the local Agway in Walpole, NH.  Someone there noticed a small flock of Horned Larks and Snow Buntings in the field out back and started putting seed down every day.  So if you get there at the right time, you can get really close and they’ll just fly in and eat, anywhere from 15′-30′ away.  

I’ve had pictures this nice of Horned Larks before:

                               

But never one this crisp and clear of a Snow Bunting:

                               

And capturing them in flight (mixture of horned larks and snow buntings) is a real treat:

                               

                               

                               

                               

I look for Butings and Larks all winter and couldn’t find the flocks in their usual spots.  Now I know why.  They’re all hanging out at the Agway.

Agway is also a good place to look for Mockingbirds.  I suspect this one is a year-round resident:

                               

And, of course, black-capped chickadees are ubiquitous:

                               

                               

These are from November.  You probably know the species

   

And a few more older photos of various winter birds from the past few years: