Contest – Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

I was actually bummed that Mike went off to South Africa and didn’t have a Halloween contest this year as I had a couple of good photos to share. I decided for the “‘Tis the Season” contest that I wanted to do something new and not search for an old photo to fit the theme. We got about eight inches of snow right after Thanksgiving and my initial instinct was to go to Lincoln Memorial Garden and try to get a bird to land on one of their Christmas decorations. Well, you know what W.C. Fields said “Never work with children or animals.” I could have sat around all day and probably still not gotten a bird to land where I wanted it to land. Then, that snow melted. Luckily, we had another system come through which brought two days of new snow. After the new snow, I changed tactics. I thought about decorating a tree in my backyard and putting some bird seed out to attract some “models”. I used to have pine trees, but they all died thanks to the pinewood nematode. I replaced them with Thuja Green Giant trees, which have survived, but one was turned into a bush by the deer that visit my yard. I found three Christmas ornaments that my wife wasn’t using and I hung them from one of the trees and put out some bird seed. The tree was at the back edge of my yard and I just couldn’t seem to get close enough to photograph the birds without spooking them. They also tended to hang out underneath the branches in the shade. My next idea was to hang the ornaments from the lilac bush that is near my house and take the photos through a window. I removed the screen from the window in my laundry room for this. Luckily, my wife had recently cleaned it. I also thought it would be neat to buy a miniature tree and put it out. I found two cute Christmas trees made from bottle brushes at my local DG Market and fastened them to a sheet of Masonite to keep them from blowing away and I covered the Masonite with snow. The day after I put out these trees out, traffic started to pick up. I came up with the title for this picture based on how the male house finch in front of the tree looks like he’s dancing. There is also an American tree sparrow in the upper left and a female house finch in the upper right.