March 12, 2017 didn’t look promising for birding, but I decided to give it a try anyway.  Things were no going well until I noticed this male Anna’s hummingbird in our Cap Sante wetland.  I took many photos while it surveyed its domain from the top of a very small twig.    Some Anna’s hummingbirds are year-round residents in this area.

I then spent a little time at the Cap Sante Marina but the tide was out and the five Goldeneyes (one male and five females) I found in the marina weren’t close enough for photos.  I then returned to the wetland and while circumnavigating it some movement on the other side caught my eye.  I looked through my lens and saw an accipiter sitting on a neighbor’s rock wall about 50 yards away.

After watching it for several minutes it occurred to me that I might be able to get closer, and though I had little hope I also decided I had nothing to lose.  I drove around to just below the accipiter and began taking photos.  I took photos for probably at least 20 minutes and finally decided I had nothing else to gain and so left for home.

It had been a good day, with excellent photos of a bird near the top of the food chain and of another at the very bottom… and the photos were taken within 100 yards of each other!

While I was processing the photos in my office, I saw a flock of about 7-8 Cedar waxwings fly into the madrona tree in our front yard.  I grabbed my camera again and went outside but failed to get any photos of the waxwings.  However our male Rufous hummingbird (which arrived on the same day as our first female, March 7) was back in the yard and I took several photos of it under less-than-optimum circumstances, but… in one of the photos the hummingbird had its tongue out.  Of all the hummingbird photos I’ve ever taken, this is the best photo of a hummingbird tongue I’ve ever obtained.

We’re still overrun with Dark-eyed (Oregon) juncos and I just can’t help but admire the plumage pattern on the birds.  So here is a photo I took of one very late in the afternoon.  Lately they’ve begun chasing each other around the yard.  It won’t be long before the juncos are headed north and to higher elevations for their breeding season.  The juncos are ground nesters, and over the years I’ve found two nests.  One was under a clump of grass and the other under a Sword fern in Washington Park.  Last year we had one pair that stayed for the summer, but they ended up raising a Brown-headed cowbird.  🙁

I looked out our kitchen window about mid-morning on March 7, 2017, and saw the elusive male Varied thrush taking advantage of some of the habitat improvement (shelled sunflower seeds) I had just sprinkled in the yard. (I have yet to have anyone explain to me what a thrush is doing eating sunflower seeds, but it’s winter and I’ve already seen how that apparently brings out different behavior in some birds.) I grabbed my camera and tried to sneak out a side door, but the ever-alert thrush apparently got wind of my plan and disappeared.

However I had a great crowd of birds taking advantage of the seed on the ground. After a few minutes I realized that I had two Slate-colored Dark-eyed juncos eating the seed… along with twenty or more juncos of the Oregon race.  (Only on one or two other occasions have I seen two Slate-colored juncos in the yard at the same time, although I have long suspected that we might occasionally have two!)  I was able to take photos of both of the birds, although not together at the same time. If you look carefully at the photos below you can see some subtle differences between the two birds.

My observation chair was almost under the single hummingbird feeder we’ve kept out all winter for the Anna’s hummingbirds (at least two males and one female) and I was distracted by buzzing overhead. I looked up to see whether it was two males or a male and a female fighting over the feeder and there, not three feet from my head, was our first Rufous hummingbird of the year (a female)! She was quite interested in the feeder and I managed several photos of her.

I was then distracted by a female Varied thrush which had emerged from the perimeter of the yard. I managed several photos of her before she disappeared into the firs and madrones.

Finally, a Bewick’s wren emerged from some foliage just in front of me and it, too, went for a sunflower seed. (I guess this is no stranger than the Varied thrush eating the sunflower seeds!)

I’m not sure whether or not I’ve mentioned it here, but we’ve had a couple of shy Varied thrushes in the yard for some time this winter.  The birds usually come down to the lowlands for food in the winter when snow begins occurring in the mountains.  We’ve had a pair here (a male and female, just confirmed yesterday (Mar 5, 2017) for several weeks.  I’ve been somewhat frustrated in obtaining any good photos of them.  We see them in the yard from the house from time to time but they have been very shy and photos of either of them have been quite few and far between.

Yesterday I sat out in the yard for a couple of hours.  Under normal circumstances my hands would get too cold, but yesterday I fired up a small Zippo hand warmer (powered by lighter fluid) and stuck it in the right pocket of my coat,  With a glove on the left hand to hold my monopod, and my right hand for operating the camera stowed in the pocket with the hand warmer, I got along just fine.  Over the course of the couple of hours I got a few opportunities for photographs of the female Varied thrush.

When you can pick the birds out of the bushes, which can be a chore in itself, this is the view you might get…

But here are a couple of better views…

And here is an unobstructed view on one of the rare occasions that the thrush ventured into the open…

Sorry that the bird’s back was turned, but the birds don’t give me the opportunity to pose them!

Here’s a photo, also taken Feb 5, 2017, of another more common and less shy thrush, the American robin.  The birds often hang out together and when I see robins in the yard I begin looking for the Varied thrushes.

While I’m at it I’ll show a couple of photos of same-day visitors… Bushtits.  For the first season in the 16 years we’ve lived here, Bushtits have been coming to our feeders (suet and peanut!) several times a day.  One of these birds is a male and one is a female… do you know how to tell the difference?  (The female is giving you a clue!)