Mountain Chickadee

It's always a good idea not to take things for granted. This is a lesson that I almost learned the hard way while we were in Yellowstone back in May. While we were eating a bit of lunch outside of the Canyon Visitors Center I noticed a couple of chickadees flitting around in the pine trees. My first thought was that I have plenty of pictures of black-capped chickadees but as I looked closer I noticed that they did not quite right.

These were mountain chickadees, a species of chickadees that are found in the western half of North America, primarily the Rocky Mountains. The two species look very similar, except for the white eyebrow of the mountain chickadee. Even though they are a pretty common bird in their range I was pretty excited because this was my first opportunity to photograph this species. Although it did make me wonder if I had seen them in years past and just dismissed them as black-capped chickadee.