Chestnut-Backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens)

While browsing through the archives lately I've come across a number of bird photos that I have not posted because, while they are good enough to enable identification of the bird, they may not be very appealing or competent as photographs. The Chestnut-Backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens) pictured above is one such and I have a few others that I am going to post over the next few days simply as part of the catalog of life in and around Victoria. I must confess to a slight sense of accomplishment when I manage to identify one of the many little brownish/grayish birds that flutter around on the edges of our urban consciousness. For those of my visitors who live here you will be happy to know that despite there being a number of species of chickadee, this is the only one that lives on Vancouver Island so, should you see something like this here you can be pretty sure it is a Chestnut-Backed Chickadee. Wikipedia says it is sometimes considered to be the "most handsome" of chickadees - another good reason to visit this area, especially if you live where there are a lot of ugly chickadees.