Late (too late for photos) we had a Hermit’s thrush visit out yard with at least six of its cousins, American robins.  If memory serves me correctly that’s only about the second one we’ve seen in the five years we’ve lived at this location!

And just when I feel the obligation for a post, yet don’t have any fresh photos, fortune seems to shine my way.  On the way back from breakfast on 9/21 I noted that a regular visitor, a Pied -billed grebe, had returned from wherever it has been for the summer.  I needed to run an errand and a while later loaded my camera and monopod in the car and headed back down to the marina.  By this time the grebe had gone but there was a Harbor seal in the area so I decided to see if it would pass my way.  It didn’t, but I kept noticing a slight disturbance by the edge of the water… too shallow for a seal.  After watching for awhile I spied a mink.  Sometime in the past year a group of women rowers (all friends) were kind enough to take me on an excursion to photograph the mink, but we didn’t see any on the morning I was in the boat.  However I had gotten a recent report that one had been seen just outside the marina and now I had found one that had migrated deep into the marina.  I probably took about 80 photos… here are a few of the best.

While I was stalking the mink I noticed about five Killdeer along the shore and took some photos of them.

Killdeer

I thought we were supposed to have rain, but since we didn’t and it was partly cloudy I decided to spend some time in the yard since it’s been a good week for birds in the yard.  It wasn’t long before a Yellow-rumped warbler visited the watercourse… it had very pale colors and was probably either a female or a juvenile.

Yellow-rumped warbler

Next up was a Golden-crowned kinglet that made several trips to the watercourse and ended its visit by taking a bath.  I obtained some better photos of the kinglet but I’m posting this one so that you can see that in addition to the golden crown, this bird, like its cousin the Ruby-crowned kinglet, has a bright orange crown that it can selectively show.  The orange is usually covered by the yellow crown, but in this photo you can see a hint of the orange.  I think that the light coloration at the base of the bird’s beak indicates that it’s the product of this year’s breeding.

Golden-crowned kinglet with usually hidden orange crown showing