Here is a little woodpecker lesson.  We have at least four common kinds of woodpecker-type birds here.  The smallest, and in my yard the most common, is the Downy woodpecker.  The Downy and Hairy woodpeckers have virtually identical markings but can be differentiated by size, with the Hairy woodpecker being larger.  However I maintain that trying to assess the difference in these birds by size is not reliable.  The best way to differentiate these two species is by the length of their beaks compared with head size.  Take a careful look at this male Downy’s beak (pictured immediately below).

The photo below is of a male Hairy woodpecker on the same feeder.  Note the larger and heavier beak.  The Hairy woodpecker has been a very infrequent visitor to our yard over the years, but this year we have been fortunate to have both a mature male and a juvenile male visiting the yard.

Incidentally, I have found that the Perky Pet peanut feeder pictured above is an excellent feeder for both woodpeckers and other smaller clinging birds such as nuthatches and chickadees.  Like almost all of my feeders, it discriminates against non-clinging birds which helps to minimize your feed costs.

And finally, here is a photo of a male Northern flicker.  They have been fairly consistent visitors over the years and we had both male and female adults and male and female juveniles this spring/summer.  Unfortunately we lost one earlier in a window kill.  Unlike many woodpeckers, the male sex of the flicker is denoted by the red patch on the cheek and not a red patch on the head.

The other woodpecker we have in the greater area is the Pileated woodpecker.  I have seen only one in our yard and one in the Cap Sante neighborhood over the past sixteen years, but there are more heavily forested areas where these birds, which desire a large territory, can be found.  There is usually at least one pair in Washington Park each year.

It’s always a difficult decision as to what to post to my blog.  I take a lot of photos, generally every day, and I can either wait to post through the backlog or post the day’s photos immediately.  I had a good day today and so have decided to post today’s photos.

We had, for this year, an unusual visitor today.  A male Wilson’s warbler, which I usually consider the most numerous in our location, fly through the yard twice this afternoon.  The first time I saw it I was without my camera, but it returned about 20-30 minutes later when I was prepared.  It flew across and around the yard several times but never landed long enough for me to get even a single photograph.  : (

However, while I sat in the yard one of the Black-headed grosbeak juveniles raised in the area came closer to me (and my camera) than one had ever come before.  As a result I obtained several very good photographs, two of which I’m showing you here.

This year we’ve had one, and sometimes two, Townsend’s chipmunks in the yard.  (We’ve also gotten very brief glimpses of a very small one scurrying under the undergrowth.

Here’s a male House finch… 

and a Black-capped chickadee.

And finally a pair of juvenile American goldfinches.

Just a reminder… all the photos on my blog from this point until further notice were taken with my new Nikon D500 camera.

This spring we had a pair of White-crowned sparrows which late in the season produced four young.  Unfortunately one met its demise against one of our windows.  In most past years we haven’t been able to retain these birds through the breeding season.

This year we also had two pairs of Black-headed grosbeaks, at least one pair of which successfully bred some number of young.  While the grosbeaks were frequent visitors they are fairly secretive about entering the yard and we never could get an accurate count of the number of young.  We had an accipiter visit the yard several times since last week (about 8/5) and the grosbeaks have apparently left the area, possibly for the season.

The grosbeaks are the only reason I maintain a small platform feeder during the spring and summer months.  The grosbeak pictured below is one of the breeding males.

This is either one of the breeding female Black-headed grosbeaks or possibly one of the juveniles.  I have  noted that, at least for me, the young grosbeaks were difficult to diffferentiate from the adult females.

We had at least one pair of breeding Spotted towhees in the yard this spring and summer.  I’m always interested in the maturation of the young of this species.  They initially look nothing like the adults and even as they mature they look different from each other as they mature.  I think they give beginning birders one of their greatest challenges!  The bird pictured below is apparently a mature male.

In my last post I mentioned that I had purchased a new camera in mid-June.  The new camera is a Nikon D500 which will replace my Nikon D7100 as my primary birding camera.  I’m still using my ‘old’ Nikkor 200-400mm F4 lens, which I had refurbished by Nikon earlier this year at an exorbitant cost, for all my birding photography.  I’m impressed with the images I’m getting with the new camera but am still trying to understand and master some of the new features.  The improvements to my images are obvious to me but may not be reflected in what makes it to this website.

I may have complained in past blog posts about the lack of special species visiting the yard.  I’m still disappointed, but beginning in mid-July I’ve begun receiving a few rarer visitors, most of which I’ve managed to photograph.  Still, it’s been a very odd spring/summer for yard visitors.  I’ve created a text-only document that chronicles some of the more unusual observations/experiences that have occurred in our yard since mid-July  and if you would like to peruse the document email me and I’ll send you a copy.

First up, a rather pleasant photo of a bee on a bloom in the yard.  I’m amazed that I can get this kind of quality from the 400mm lens.

Now to the rogues’ gallery.  We have hosted far too many obnoxious species this summer, but they give me something to do while waiting for more interesting species.  This first photo is of a female Song sparrow feeding a juvenile.

While the number of Brown-headed cowbirds we’ve had in the yard haven’t been great, we have had at least one juvenile continuously from mid-June through all of July.  Each of these young represent a nesting failure for one of our more desirable species of songbirds.  If you don’t understand how this works do a little research on cowbirds or contact me.

We have been absolutely overrun with European starlings this year, and the visitation seems to have lasted longer than in past years.  I normally have two suet feeders out but the starlings are capable of emptying both in a day.  A couple of weeks ago I’ve started limiting the suet feeder access to times I’m in the yard so that I can try to keep them off the feeders.  But even when they aren’t accessing the suet feeders they are swamping the watercourse.

The photo below is of a juvenile European starling.  I seldom see any starlings in the yard during the non-breeding months but I’m beginning to get worried that the young this year are beginning to develop bad habits and will be with me year-round!

On a more pleasant, and brighter note, we still have both Anna’s (male and female) hummingbirds in the yard and female Rufous hummingbirds, one of which is pictured below.  If you want a recommendation for a hummingbird attractor for photographic purposes, you can’t go wrong with Blue-Black salvia (pictured below).  The plant is perennial and the hummingbirds love the blossoms.  And the foliage is thin enough to not impede most photography.