Cleaning House vs Photographing Birds

Male House Finch

Yesterday, one of our friends who spent this past weekend camping in the desert with us, spent the night at our home on his way back to Seattle, Washington.

Since we had a guest coming, I decided I'd better vacuum the floor and tidy the house up a bit. I started picking up some of the stuff the kids had left lying on the floor, got Doug to replace the vacuum bag in the vacuum cleaner, and even started vacuuming a bit.

I don't remember what it was that made me stop what I was doing and look out the sliding door. Oh yes, earlier I had seen several birds perching on the fence in the backyard, and one of them had bright red feathers on its head. That must be a male house finch, I thought to myself!

So in the midst of the vacuuming, I took a break to see if the birds were still hanging around the fence. Indeed I saw, the house finch. I left the vacuum cleaner right in the middle of the living room floor, took out my camera, change the lens, picked up my boots, and out the door I went.

I had to wait several minutes before the house finch came back on the fence. I took several pictures but unfortunately, they were not as sharp as I'd like.

Northern Mockingbird

Then the melodious singing of a bird perched on the far end of the fence, attracted my attention. I crouched and bent and made my way to the far end of the backyard. I could identify the bird as a mockingbird. It was whistling away and ignored me as I approached it. Such beautiful singing!

The friend arrived earlier than expected, in fact while I was still out in the backyard, and the living room was only partially cleaned!

Photographing birds is quite an addicting past time! It can distract you from your house cleaning!