Day 189: A bird in the (berry) bush

is worth... uhhhhh. No, that's not right :-) I took a few minutes to wander outside to get some fresh air before having to spend an hour or more in a darkened room listening to members of our research group give short presentations. It seems like only yesterday I was admiring the head-high lupines, now all dying off. The only plant showing signs of life is the bramble, but even that is starting to look past it. Looking over at the hummingbird tree, I saw a few small birds (LBBs: Little Brown Birds) hopping back and forth and went over for a closer look. Maybe I could get one of them. Well, they moved too fast and I got nothing, until one dropped into a nearby bush and remained still long enough for me to snatch a couple of photos. I didn't really pay any attention to the bush or the bird and it was only when I got home (as usual!) that I saw I had something worth looking at again. Sure it was sharp enough, and the bird was in a nice-looking berry bush (I'm surprised to see any berries left). At first I thought it was just a song sparrow and almost didn't post the picture below, but then one of our Flickr contacts identified the bird as an American tree sparrow, a bird I haven't knowingly taken a picture of before. Good enough for me to make it my picture of the day :-)

Bird in a berry bush