I’m finding it increasingly difficult to move from the yard to Southeast Alaska or Eastern Washington with my photos. This afternoon I looked out the kitchen window at the watercourse and saw a female Black-headed grosbeak next to the watercourse. I reasoned I couldn’t sneak up on her at ground level so I grabbed my camera and raced upstairs to my office. Unfortunately she was gone by the time I was ready to take a photograph, but the idea had been planted in my mind that she might return and I might be able to get some photos, so about 2:30pm, after having run some errands in MtV & Burlington, I headed for the yard with my camera.

I sat around for over two hours with only a Spotted towhee to show for my time. (I passed the time photographing the usual suspects… chickadees, nuthatches, sparrows and goldfinches.)

It was slightly before 5pm and I was just ready to quit for the day when a Brown creeper showed up in the watercourse.  I’ve explained several times before how much difficulty I have photographing this bird, and I’m thankful for every single saveable image I obtain!

I was photographing the creeper when I saw some movement around a ‘Fancy Dancer’ salvia that I had purchased this same afternoon at Ace Hardware. The plant wasn’t even in the ground but a female Rufous hummingbird was accessing it for nectar… which led to more photos.

I then noticed a dark bird in the middle of the watercourse and couldn’t identify it, so I brought my lens and camera to bear and discovered that it was our first observed Red crossbill of the year! This one was a juvenile… how I’ve been missing these birds! I’m hopeful that this bird will spread the word to friends and family as to what a great experience it was bathing in our new watercourse!

Then it was back to the female Rufous hummingbird accessing the salvia again!

At this point I noticed movement at one of the birdbaths in the yard and turned slightly to see a female Downy woodpecker getting a drink… which necessitated a few more photos.

As the woodpecker flew I my attention was drawn to a new bird on one of my staging sticks at the head of the watercourse. I quickly realized that it was a male Yellow-rumped warbler of the Audubon race. It was in the same location as the one I had seen a day or two previously. As I photographed it I thought that I was getting it pre-bath, but I realized when developing my photos that it had already accessed a water source somewhere in the yard as it was about as wet as a bird can get!

So what dragged on as a relatively long, uneventful afternoon suddenly turned very interesting for about fifteen minutes time. I was so pleased with the salvia that I trucked back down to Ace Hardware to purchase a second plant… on sale for 25% off. Now both plants are in the ground beside the watercourse and I’m hoping for more hummingbird visits this summer. By the way… all of the male Rufous hummingbirds have been gone for several weeks now and the number of female Rufous hummingbirds are noticeably fewer. We still have our male Anna’s hummingbird but I’m unsure of whether or not there is still a female in the yard. However, the hummingbird wars continue!

So in the end I had another 114 photos to process. I’ve processed just enough of them to post this blog.