After photographing the loon on Monday morning I returned to the house to find the yard full of birds.  So I transitioned to the yard and began photographing our visitors.

We had both kinds of kinglets, both Golden-crowned…

and Ruby-crowned.

Interestingly enough, I think we hosted our first juvenile Ruby-corwned kinglet, and I have to bestow the title of “Cutest Bird of the Year” on this youngster.  It was taken with the watercourse, returning time and time again to bathe and then preen around in the area.

We’re still hosting our male Hairy woodpecker, which I’ve featured in past blog posts…

But our most important, and rarest visitor of the day was a Hermit’s thrush.  I see one of these only rarely… maybe every 2-3 years or so.  I got a glimpse of what I think was the bird entering the yard, but it stuck to the ground, flew very rapidly and was very furtive.  I knew that we might have an unusual visitor but wasn’t sure what it was going to be.  Finally it appeared on the edge of the watercourse and gave me the opportunity for about 20 photos.

All precisely 3pm the show ended when our first accipiter (probably a Cooper’s hawk) in a couple of months flew through the yard.  I hated to see it because it puts some of our songbirds at risk as well as discourages them from entering the yard.