Photographing an Oak Titmouse

There is a small flock or "banditry" of titmice in the garden.  I noticed that they would pick the safflower seeds out of the wild bird mix and fly away.  All of the larger birds and especially the crows were devouring the wild bird seed in the platform feeder, so I decided to put safflower seeds into a small two port feeder.  The titmice love it.  I watch from the kitchen window as they fly up to the feeder, take out one safflower seed and fly away.  They don't sit at the feeder and eat like Lesser Goldfinches or House Finches.  I went outside with my digital SLR camera to take some pictures of the titmice.  It was really hard as they don't sit still for a second.  Just as I was getting them in focus, they would jump to another branch.  The auto focus had a hard time focusing too as the birds were among the branches of the trees.  I switched back and forth between manual and auto focus.  Eventually I was able to get a few pictures.

Oak Titmouse at the safflower seed feeder

Oak Titmouse

Oak Titmouse looking for insects to eat in the pine tree

Oak Titmouse, This bird was a little jumpy and it lost the seed (it's in the air) trying to get away to quick.

Some of the other birds seemed to be watching me as I photographed the titmice.

Mourning Dove

House Finch

Anna's Hummingbird in the honeysuckle