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Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Victoria, British Columbia
To an east-coaster, visiting the park in Victoria, British Columbia is much like it is back in Montreal: get out of the car, start walking down the trail, and sooner or later, the friendly local chickadees will find you and expect a steady supply of peanuts and sunflower seeds. But something's definitely up with these birds...who turned the chickadees from black to brown? There's nothing wrong with your eyes, or with the camera sensor; these are indeed a different species from the familiar black-capped. Aptly named, chestnut-backed chickadees switch out the black for brown, notably on the head and the back. They can be shy, depending on the place, but where they've grown accustomed to humans, one will find them just as personable as the black-capped chickadees. For a bit of fall color and atmosphere, I photographed this bird while he was perched on a Japanese barberry in full October red. The plants aren't native to North America and present a pest control problem in their introduced habitat —for some reason, ticks absolutely love them— but landscapers like them for their vivid red leaves and berries in the autumn months. Birds, on the other hand, go straight for the red berries, which is a good food source for them, but bad for anyone who doesn't want more barberry growing where it didn't used to. I suppose using it as a photography tool counts as making the best out of an unwelcome invasive plant!
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