Smokies Light

I've posted before that the dark-eyed junco is my favorite mountain songbird. It's just one beautiful little bird. Their preferred habitat is what you see here, brushy areas on the highest mountaintops in the Smokies and Appalachia. In the winter when the high mountains are covered in ice and snow, they will come down to the valleys and often be seen at bird feeders. This image was taken on the Forney Ridge trail on Clingman's Dome. The rocks you see are the actual trail. When walking the high mountain trails in the warmer months, the rustling you hear in the brush is almost alway a junco. I've been trying to capture an image of one for years in their preferred habitat. I really like this pic.