It’s been three weeks since I last visited Kensington, my favorite park, feeding and taking pictures of the birds.

Those of you new here probably don’t know about Kensington, where the wild birds freely come down to outstretched hands for treats.

Most people seeing this for the first time think it’s odd and wonderful, all at the same time. Which of course it is.

Feeding the birds is one of my favorite things to do in the whole world and if I lived closer I’m sure I’d be there every day. There are some lucky people who are able to do that. I think some of the birds probably recognize them as regulars.

I see some people walking the trails for exercise, but the majority of people are there to experience a bird landing on their hand, or to photograph birds. Or both.

It’s been so long now since I took these pictures that I can’t remember the stories that go with them. So mostly I won’t narrate the birds’ thoughts. Suffice it to say that they’re mostly all about the food.

Mostly I was trying to get images of birds moving, they’re so beautiful in flight. But often I had the camera focused on my hand, waiting for the birds to land, and their wingspans turned out to be just outside the focus area. Lesson learned.

Still, you can see how complicated bird wings are, and how beautiful.

As photographers we were so lucky that day — the sun came out, so even though it was very cold and windy we got some beautiful light.

We spent a good two hours standing next to a small tree that seemed to be the launching ground for little (and some not so little) birds to buzz over to our hands.

We didn’t have to go look for the birds, they heard (through the grape vine?) about us and zoomed right over.

But eventually the sun lowered and the chill intensified. The handwarmers I put in my boots were now cold and so were my toes.

It was time to go home, but we didn’t want to leave our little friends. They were still busy coming and going.

They weren’t giving up on us…how could we give up on them?

But they had eaten a lot, their bellies should be full. And in the morning a whole new bunch of people would be on the trails, hands outstretched filled with oilers and peanuts and suet balls.

Breakfast will be served.

Oh…on a previous post I said that we saw something beautiful on the way out of the park…but this post is already way too long. So I guess you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer.

I promise it’s worth the wait.