I quickly reviewed my website before posting this and found I’ve been mostly posting photos of the same birds. It can’t be helped when they’re the only ones that show up!  Hopefully the photos are a little different in terms of poses or perches. To keep my photos looking different, from time to time I vary my staging sticks. Sometimes it’s psychology difficult to do so. When you create a good staging stick and the birds make good use of it, it’s hard to give it up!  

I’ve been able to spend a little more time in the yard lately. Fall is another major period of avian transition, with spring//summer birds leaving and fall/winter birds arriving. I’ve had a few sightings of birds I usually think of as migrants, but some of them are here year-round, just in fewer numbers than in the spring migration. 

One example is the Orange-crowned warbler, a fairly common spring visitor but much rarer in the fall and winter. The species visited the yard twice this week and gave me uncommon opportunities for photos. 

Another species that appeared in the yard for several days is the Yellow-rumped warbler, almost always apparently a female or juvenile. 

I’ve had a Brown creeper almost every day and was able to obtain better than average photos of one in more recent days. Creepers are very active and I get my best opportunities for photographs when the creeper’s favorite bird bath is occupied by another species. It doesn’t like communal bathing and so slows somewhat and lingers on the side of a madrone, waiting for other birds to leave. 

I get daily visits from Golden-crowned kinglets but often don’t get an opportunity for photos because they like to use a pedestal bird bath immediately adjacent to me. This one is a male, one of a flock of five kinglets that visited the yard on October 5, 2024.

I still have at least two White-crowned sparrows that visit the yard, one an adult and the other either a juvenile or a tan-morph subspecies. 

Dark-eyed (Oregon) juncos are beginning to return for the winter. In some years they edge out Pine siskins and House sparrows for the most numerous species in the yard, but this year I think the House sparrows may win out thanks to neighbors’ nest boxes with over-sized holes. The sparrows are hatched elsewhere but are attracted to my yard because of more nutritious food offerings. 

I’ve mustered as many as about six Golden-crowned sparrows in the yard at one time but they seem to come and go at this point. I should have a more permanent population of around ten for the winter. 

I was able to spend a little time in the yard on September 30, 2024. For quite a while the yard was virtually empty, but late in the afternoon a diverse group of small birds began entering the yard. This collection of birds consists of some of our smallest visitors.

One of my first small visitors was a male Anna’s hummingbird accessing one of many salvias planted in the yard just to attract hummingbirds. (The salvias are a great yard plant… they don’t freeze, the deer don’t bother them snd they bloom from spring to fall.)

This male Golden-crowned kinglet appeared in the yard and spent considerable time posing very near to me, giving me an excellent opportunity for a lot of photos.

The surprise of the afternoon was a Ruby-crowned kinglet, a relatively rare visitor to the yard. I was lucky that I was able to obtain the following photo because the bird quickly moved higher in the canopy and intermingled with a flock of Bushtits where I lost it. .

Speaking of Bushtits, I had two visits from one or more flocks. The one pictured below is a male.

Finally, this Brown creeper showed up for a bath after touring the yard. As I’ve mentioned before, this is a difficult bird to photograph because it is almost constantly moving and is so camouflaged that my camera seems to have trouble focusing on the bird.

On September 20, 2024, I was sitting in my office and glanced out the window to see a Yellow-rumped warbler flying around the watercourse. I went for my camera but by the time I got to the yard the warbler had departed.

I decided to sit outside for a while but for some time things were very slow. I did get a couple of more glimpses of a Yellow-rumped warbler, but no opportunities for good photos. Eventually a male (take my word for it!) Golden-crowned kinglet entered the watercourse and I was able to obtain some good photos.

After another considerable wait a Brown creeper made an appearance at its favorite yard feature, a stone birdbath on the outskirts of the yard where I can’t get what I consider quality photographs due to the distance. However, overcrowding at the stone birdbath motivated the creeper to move towards the watercourse (and me). I managed this photo of the creeper on a staging stick immediately adjacent to the watercourse before it decided to leave without bathing.

I was suddenly startled to see a juvenile Cedar waxwing perched on a branch in the madrone tree over the stone bird bath. As I watched it was joined by a second juvenile and eventually by two adults. The waxwings spent considerable time bathing and left the yard only to return a short time later.

Two Anna’s hummingbirds were contesting the yard as territory, one mature adult and the other an apparent juvenile. This photo is of the adult.

 I had a rather spectacular yard burning afternoon on September 17, 2024. I had no sooner seated myself in the yard with my camera when I saw a Fox sparrow, my first of the fall season. 

Just a few minutes later a  Golden-crowned sparrow appeared, also my first of the fall season.  I had a total of at least three in the yard during the afternoon, two adults and one juvenile.

Shortly thereafter an Orange-crowned warbler entered the yard, followed a short time later by three more!  This was the start of multiple sightings of the species for the rest of the afternoon. There were so many Orange-crowned warbler visits with so many opportunities for photos that I retained 44 photos of the species. 

A Yellow warbler also visited the yard, but I was unable to acquire any good photos. 

Finally, a Townsend’s warbler worked its way through the top of the Golden Chain tree, but it never descended low enough for me to get a good photo. 

Sparrow season is now on!  I had the following six species of sparrows in the yard this day: 

By day’s end (shortly before 5pm) I had taken 329 bird photos in the yard, of which I saved 126.

I continue to get a few interesting birds in the yard this early fall. On September 11, 2024, I had a sudden influx of 4-5 adult and one juvenile White-crowned sparrows which were attracted to some sunflower seeds I had dispersed on the ground. They fed for about a minute or two and then all left. I have never known White-crowned sparrows to be gregarious.

I spent a little time outside before the rain on September 13, 2024, and was visited by what I think was a female or juvenile Yellow warbler! The bird was a uniform, pale yellow, too uniform in coloring to be an Orange-crowned warbler. I saw it making its way through the bushes but before I could get a photo it flew to a Japanese maple immediately adjacent to me, too close for a photo.

A short time later I had a visit from a juvenile or female Yellow-rumped warbler and obtained several photos as it accessed the watercourse for a short bath.

While I was in the yard this male Anna’s hummingbird made a brief stop. Here you can see the effect your viewing angle has on the apparent color of the gorget.

A single juvenile White-crowned sparrow continued to visit the yard and I obtained a lot of photos.