Fat Ball

In German it's a meisenknödel, I had to google it to see what it might be called in English. Is it really called a fat ball? Can't always trust what you read in the Internet. Anyway, it's a ball of seeds and fat for the birds to feed on in winter.

I chose this picture for today, not for its photographic quality, but because I wanted to talk about birds. At the time when I was trying to get a shot of our local celebrity owl, I was googling owls in the Internet and happened upon some interesting tidbits of information. One was that a famous photographer and ornithologist, Eric Hosking, was attacked by an owl while atttempting to photograph him and lost an eye in the process. That seemed to me to be a high price to pay for a picture, but he was passionate about birds and photography. I was so impressed that I got ahold of his autobiography, "An Eye for a Bird". It's a fascinating read.

I can hardly identify any birds, let alone photograph them. But we hung up two "fat balls" and I am wondering if any bird will notice them. So far my good intentions have been ignored.