I spent considerable time in the yard on September 11, 2018, without seeing a single warbler or other migrant passing through. How boring! But… not long after I arrived at my yard post I had a visitor who remained in the yard for several minutes. Here’s a clue…
I obtained only one good photo, and here it is. I have it on good authority that this is probably a juvenile Cooper’s hawk. Size is not a good determining factor between the Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned hawks, but this hawk seemed on the large side to me.
It had been an otherwise boring afternoon when I spied a bird among all the house sparrows exhibiting a little different behavior (a special area of the yard and non-gregarious) and looking closer I identified our first Golden-crowned sparrow of the fall season!
And to round out this post, a few of the more common birds which occupy my time…
One of the juvenile California quail fledged this season. Of the covey that visits our yard we seem to have two adult males and seven young females. I’ve quit trying to separate the young from the adults because the young are so large I can’t tell them from the adults.
This is one of the two adult males in the covey.
A Black-capped chickadee…
And a Cottontail rabbit munching on plants in my bog…
