Happy New Year. I wish everyone a joyous and prosperous 2012.
I think a Towhee must have been the inspiration for the game “Angry Birds”. I’ve never played Angry Birds, but I’ve seen ads for it on various web sites, and the Spotted Towhee in the first photo has a similar look to the Angry Birds drawings I’ve seen in the ads.
A House Finch perched on the tip top of our blue spruce in the late afternoon sun, scanned its surroundings with the confidence of a top bird. I took my last walk in the bosque for 2011 as the sun set, and noticed the moon was half full directly above me as I watched some cranes fly over — I couldn’t resist photographing it (600mm, ƒ/5.6, 1/200, ISO 250, hand held, image stabilization on in camera, image cropped).
Off Center & Not Even 
I cannot believe all these hand held bird pictures. You must be stronger and steadier than most people. Really impressive.
Lois
-I wish you a healthy and happy 2012 🙂 “Lokkig Nei Jiir” in local dialect
-We dont have the Towhee here but it reminds me of the Jackdaw ( pica pica ) also a angry and sometimes monstrous bird.
-I saw the specs of your camera, interesting a 4/3rd sensor in a dslr housing. Performance is great.
-My D200 is manufact’d 2008 or 2009 so it is an old camera 😉
Olympus has been using 4/3 in the dslrs for some time now. I have a Lumix L10 which I mostly use with olympus lenses. It’s interesting because the focus is a bit faster and more accurate on the L10, but it has not IS in the body, so all photos with it using Olympus lenses have no stabilization.
I like the smaller size of the 4/3 cameras, and the Olympus pro lenses are very well built, reliable and very sharp. The 4/3 sensors don’t do well at high ISO is my only problem with the 4/3 system.