This is the first of what I intend to be weekly posts containing the best images captured during the week. With no major outings planned, my selection this week contains images from around the house and our town. As usual, to see a larger view of any image, just click on it and my website will open in a new window.

First up is an interesting moment between a male Northern Flicker and a female Red-bellied Woodpecker. Northern Flickers are uncommon visitors to our yard, whereas we have have a pair of Red-bellies year-round. I saw the flicker land on the feeder that was already occupied by the woodpecker, and quickly grabbed my camera and captured a few images.

Saturday morning my friend Bill (an  artist and photographer...visit his website here) and I took a drive around our town (Hollis NH) to see what we could find. We found a few Eastern Bluebirds. ...and a pair of Green-winged Teals. Here is the male...

In the evening, I was out by the beaver pond looking for ducks, but didn't see any. The nearly full moon was overhead and I captured the following image:

If you're thinking this image looks unreal, you're right. It is a combination of two images taken one minute apart, from the same location and the same focal length. The tree is illuminated by my flash. And while the moon didn't appear in that exact location, it was pretty close. Using two images also allowed me to get both the moon and the tree in focus, which would have been impossible to do with a single image.

Sunday morning I went out to another spot near the pond, again looking for some ducks. Although I did see  a pair of Hooded Mergansers, they were too far out to get a decent shot.  I did capture a bunch of images of a pair of Black-capped Chickadees excavating a nest cavity in a small dead tree on the edge of the pond.

Do you see anything creepy in this image of the chickadee leaving the nest with some wood chips?

Here the chickadee posed for me on a nearby branch.

The final image of the week is of a Brown Creeper. These birds are usually seen climbing (creeping?) up a tree in a spiral pattern, and this one was behaving true to form.

That's it for this week. We have another 2 to 3 days of heavy rain forecast beginning tomorrow, with flood warnings posted. This will be the third major storm in the last five weeks. If there's any local flooding around, I'll see if I can get some pictures of it.