Barbecuing Little Grey Birds

Yesterday, while my living room was full of wonderful family folk watching bowl game after bowl game, I was outside.

It's understood that I will be outside during these end of the year football marathons. I'm happy, the football fans are happy ... it works.

Besides, there were 3 racks of ribs to barbecue, freeze prepwork to do, and a gorgeous blue winter sky ... and I do mean gorgeous.

The nice thing about slow barbecuing ribs is you don't have to stand over them, so after I had the fire, smoke, and meat combination where I wanted it, I had time to do a little LGB stalking.



The oaks near the BBQ pit were busy with flitty bits o'bird.



I saw a lot of this view as I crept around beneath the oaks.



"Mr. Attitude"



So birders, what were these guys eating in the Laurel Oaks? They were getting something along the twigs. You could see them pecking at something, but what? Unseen bugs or tiny oak buds?


When I was a kid, climbing in the huge mimosa tree across the street, and I hung upside down like this bird, the other kids would say, "That's long enough! The blood will rush to your head!"

Our mothers had told each of us that if we hung upside down, "the blood would rush to our heads"

They kind of left it at that and we weren't sure what happened after the blood rushed to your head, but we were pretty sure it was somewhere between fainting and having your head explode.

So we always reminded each other if it looked like an upside down, legs crooked over a branch, dangle seemed to be going a little long.

It doesn't seem to be a problem for this little flitful of feathers.

These LGB's do present a challenge as they are almost always overhead against a bright sky or worse, in shadow where their camo makes them disappear.



Wrens on the other hand are low altitude birds. Still challenging in the woods as they alway seem to be in or under some bush.



I was really glad to see this one and it's twin flitting in and out of a brush pile I had constructed earlier this year. This morning at 1130 hours, the actual temp is 39 and a 16 mile per hour wind is giving us a 30 degree windchill factor. I feel good knowing my wrens are probably snuggled down in the center of this pile, safe from an energy sapping wind.

You might wonder, after reading this post, and looking at these bird shots ... did I burn the ribs while I was galivanting around from tree to tree?

Is it possible to do challenging bird photography and barbecue at the same time?

I'll show you a picture on Friday's Food Fest and you can judge for yourself.