The Garden’s Smaller Guests — Bushtit, Chickadees, and a Nuthatch

Some mornings the garden fills up with small, fast birds working the feeder. None of them hold still for long — which is half the fun of trying to photograph them. Here are four little visitors from one morning, and the moments they gave me.

A Juvenile American Bushtit

One of the smallest songbirds in North America — a puff of soft gray no heavier than a couple of paperclips, with a long tail and a voice like a tiny bell. They pour through the garden in chattering little flocks, never still for more than a moment.

Which is what makes this one hard-won. You don’t pose a bushtit. You wait, you follow, and you trust a fast finger to catch the half-second it pauses. This little one gave me that half-second. One of the cutest birds you will ever see — and now you have too.

A Black-capped Chickadee

Hanging upside down from my goji berry tree, sizing up the suet feeder and waiting for its chance. Chickadees are like this — small and fearless, working a branch from every angle, gravity optional. That black cap and bib, the white cheeks, and a voice that says its own name.

Bold enough to come in close, patient enough to wait for the right moment. This one had its eye on dinner and was biding its time.

A Red-breasted Nuthatch

Poised and ready to dart in for the suet. Nuthatches have their own way of doing things — they walk headfirst down the tree while everyone else climbs up, gravity apparently just a suggestion. Watch for the rusty-cinnamon breast, the sharp black cap and eye-line, and listen for a call like a tiny tin horn.

They don’t linger. They grab a bite, tuck it into the bark, and hammer it open — the little “hatch” that gives them their name. This one was locked in, about to make its move.

A Chestnut-backed Chickadee

The Northwest’s own chickadee — and the most colorful of them, with a warm chestnut back and flanks instead of the plain gray of its cousins. This is a Pacific-coast local, right at home here in the Portland damp.

These ones love my fountain. They’ll drop in for a proper bird bath, then go make the rounds of the suet and the feeders. Water first, dinner after — a bird that knows how to keep house.

Four birds, one feeder, and just enough variety in their little habits to feel like a portrait of the garden’s regulars.