Photo of the Day: Carolina Chickadee

Linda Hoopes gets to know a playful chickadee.

2012 AUDUBON MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS WINNERSAmateur Editors' ChoiceTripod in place, she was ready when she caught sight of this acrobatic Carolina chickadee dangling from the silky thread of a cocoon it was devouring. When deciding to enter this photo in the contest, says the 63-year-old retired financial consultant, “I spent much time studying, laughing, and reliving that treasured moment with the chickadee that I will always remember.” Photo: Photograph by Linda Hoopes — 2012 AUDUBON MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS WINNERS
Amateur Editors' Choice
Tripod in place, she was ready when she caught sight of this acrobatic Carolina chickadee dangling from the silky thread of a cocoon it was devouring. When deciding to enter this photo in the contest, says the 63-year-old retired financial consultant, “I spent much time studying, laughing, and reliving that treasured moment with the chickadee that I will always remember.”

By Clara Chaisson

Published August 07, 2014

"Know your subject" is an oft-recited mantra of the photography world. And after two years of trying to capture a picture of a Carolina Chickadee hanging upside down, Linda Hoopes had certainly become well acquainted with hers.

"It was amazing to get to know an animal has a sense of humor," Hoopes says. One chickadee dropped seeds on Hoopes's head as she refilled the birdfeeder in her Greenwood, Indiana, yard; another photo-bombed a picture Hoopes was trying to take of a cardinal.

The chickadee here was searching for a snack in Hoopes's yard on a snowy February day when the photographer finally managed to snap a shot of the inverted bird from her study window.

This image was a Top 100 photo from the 2012 Audubon Magazine Photography Awards. To see all of the photos, click here.