It was an overcast afternoon at the house but I decided to try to obtain some bird photos in the yard.  There were a lot of birds in the yard but nothing especially unusual.  But I had the time and opportunity to do a little yard birding so here are some of the results.

Not our most numerous avian guest but almost always around the feeders are Chestnut-backed chickadees…

We have several Golden-crowned sparrows in and around the yard.  This species is here only in the winter and leaves in the spring for breeding grounds to the north.

This is our most numerous winter visitor, the Oregon race of the Dark-eyed junco.  This individual is a male…

And here is a species that has visited each winter for at least the past eleven years… a  Slate-colored race member of the Dark-eyed juncos.  This is a male and is distinguished not only by coloring but by the fact that it isn’t readily accepted by the Slate-colored juncos and prefers to feed alone.

This is a male Anna’s hummingbird that is attempting to control the feeders and yard.  We have at least two males and a female.

This is another new of the same male Anna’s hummingbird.  This view shows the bird’s gorget reflecting, even without any direct sunlight.

This is one of our Golden-crowned kinglets.  On one occasion I had at least one male and four others of undetermined sex in and around the watercourse at the same time.  I can almost never tell the two sexes apart, even when they are bathing.  Occasionally the male will reveal its orange crown when bathing, preening after a bath or when confronting other birds.

Here is the male Golden-crowned kinglet I was able to identify…

We had at least one Ruby-crowned kinglet in the yard…

I also saw but wasn’t able to photograph a Song sparrow, a Fox sparrow, a Brown creeper, about 10-12 California quail and about 15 Bushtits.

Other yard news:

Over this past week we have had both a Bewick’s wren and a Ruby-crowned kinglet accessing our peanut feeders!

Early on the afternoon of Friday, November 23, we had a lot of birds in the yard and although there wasn’t a lot of light for photography, I decided to try my luck.  I had to shoot at a higher ISO and slower shutter speed than I would have preferred, but I did obtain some photos.

One of the first birds I saw was a Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon’s) flying around the yard.  I wasn’t sure at the time but I thought there might have been two of them, a fact I later confirmed.

We had six species of sparrows…

The Oregon race of Dark-eyed junco, with which the yard is overrun…

The Slate-colored race of Dark-eyed junco, of which we have only one…

The Fox sparrow (again, apparently only one)…

The Golden-crowned sparrow, of which we have less than a half-dozen)…

The adult White-crowned sparrow (which we hadn’t seen for a few weeks)…

And a juvenile White-crowned sparrow from this year’s hatch…

I didn’t include photos of a Spotted towhee or Song sparrow, both of which were in the yard.

We had at least four male House finches and some number of females around the yard, all attracted to a small platform feeder…

This Chestnut-backed chickadee was preparing to take a bath in our watercourse…

Our California quail usually disappear for the entire winter, and I have never figured out where they go since they don’t migrate.  However the current crop (at least five males and six females) thus far show every intention of utilizing us for supplemental food this winter.  We had so few last spring that I was worried they had been extirpated from Cap Sante, but they finally came through and raised what I think were about three broods.

Tragically, the day really turned out to be a sort of Black Friday.  One of the warblers and a junco were chasing each other around the yard and flew into a window virtually next to me… neither survived.

I’ve spent several afternoons in the last week or so monitoring the former pumpkin patch and corn maze behind (west of) the Honda dealership on the I-5 frontage road.  The field that holds the now-decimated corn maze and pumpkin patch attracts a large number of birds, including (so far) Trumpeter swans, Snow geese, Cackling geese, crows, Red-winged blackbirds, Brewer’s blackbirds, House sparrows, Mourning doves and at least one Wilson’s snipe (good luck finding it without flushing it!).  In this same field last year I photographed four species of geese on the same afternoon!  The birds come and go so it’s difficult to predict what might be there at any one time.  

Here are a few photos of the visitors to the field… 

Trumpeter swan(s) flying in…

And on the ground dining with Cackling geese...

I might note that I have had difficulty finding Cackling geese in prior years.  Since there has been a flock of as many as about 200 in this field this fall, this may be your best chance to see some.

The elusive Wilson’s snipe…

Male Red-winged blackbird…

Crow…

Male Brewer’s blackbird…

Mourning dove… king/queen of the pumpkin patch!

View on the way back to Anacortes…

On Sunday, November 11, 2018, I made a fortuitous discovery on my travels around the area I term the Skagit Flats.  I discovered a small clump of trees with an understory of brush… mainly blackberry bushes.  The trees had some kind of small fruits with which I wasn’t familiar, but I later determine the trees were probably Northwest crabapples.  (If you have other ideas as to what this tree is please let me know!) 

But the reason I was so interested in the thicket was that it was full of birds.  The birds were all what I would term ordinary, but the photographic opportunities were definitely not ordinary.  I’m going to list the species I saw there and then display a few photos and a story or two about my experiences.  

• Blackbird, Red-winged 
• Starling, European 
• Sparrow, Song 
• Sparrow, Golden-crowned 
• Sparrow, Lincoln’s 
• Towhee, Spotted 
• Goldfinch, American 
• Wren, Bewick’s 
• Hummingbird, Anna’s 
• Kinglet, Ruby-crowned (male) 
• accipiter 
• Harrier, Northern (male) 
• Hawk, Rough-legged 
• swans 

So I spent a couple of hours on that Sunday photographing the birds in the thicket.  I obtained some remarkable photographs, so I returned on Monday to see if I could repeat my success.  

When I arrived at the area on Monday, November 12, I found NO birds in the thicket.  I waited about five minutes and there was no movement, so I decided to try ‘pishing’.  I had just begun my first phrase when I was startled by an accipiter which immediately flew from the far side of the thicket to my side, took one look at me and left the area!  That explained why there were no birds in the thicket!

I realized that it would probably be awhile before there would be any chance of the birds returning, so I took an extended drive around the flats and returned maybe an hour later… and the birds were back.  I began taking more photos but about ten minutes later the accipiter returned.  The birds fled but this time I waited things out and the birds gradually began to return and I returned to my photography.  

Something in a field caught my eye and I observed that a male Northern harrier had landed on a plant stalk.  I obtained several photos but none were of good quality due to the distance involved.   

Immediately after the harrier flew a Rough-legged hawk moved into the same area and briefly hovered over the field.  I obtained some fairly good photos of it since the camera’s focus wasn’t handicapped by receding ground.  

So without further storytelling, here are a few of the photos I obtained… 

Male Ruby-crowned kinglet…

Song sparrow(s)…

Male Spotted towhee…

Male House finch dining on the aforementioned Northwest crabapple…

Juvenile White-crowned sparrow…

Male House finch…

Female Anna’s hummingbird…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to my blog.  In October my wife and I made a trip to north Texas to visit relatives.  Thankfully I didn’t drag my photographic gear along for the ride.  We left sterling weather here in Anacortes for days of heavy rain in Texas.

Added to my gap in posting has been our weather here since we returned.  There’s a lot less light, shorter days and less to photograph.  Here’s a “catch-up” posting of what I have been able to glean over the past month.

Kinglets of both species (this a Golden-crowned) continue to utilize the watercourse and bird baths.  

If I haven’t mentioned it before, there’s ben a return of one or more Dark-eyed juncos of the Slate-colored race, but if there is more than one they are never in the yard at the same time.  I took this photo of an apparent female on 10/6/2018.

For comparison, here’s a photo of a male I took on 10/30/2018 and it’s obviously not the same bird, so I guess we have had at least two here this fall.

This was about our last White-crowned sparrow we had in the yard… they’ve been gone for a couple of weeks now.  We had at least two pair that nested in the area this past summer, but one pair raised a Brown-headed cowbird.

This rare visitor (a Mourning dove) to the yard appeared 10/8/2018, our first visit from one in several years.  At the end of the summer we had several Eurasian Collared doves visiting the yard but the slate was apparently wiped clean by a Peregrine falcon that visited the neighborhood.

This Cooper’s hawk continues to visit the yard.  I took this photo on 10/21 and I was alerted by a neighbor that (presumaby the same hawk) was perched in a madrone tree in our yard as recently as yesterday (11/1/2018).  I was able to view it but it was late in the afternoon, raining and not in a location where it could be successfully photographed.

A little warning here!  If you believe in reincarnation, you don’t want to return as a crab and risk the possibility of being snagged by a gull!  It’s a gruesome way to die!

This crow is lobbying to be cut in for a snack, and it finally succeeded in snatching a leg and taking it to a boat for a meal.

Belted kingfishers are difficult to photograph as they are extremely alert and wary.  But I managed this photo of a male down at the Cap Sante Marina on the same day I photographed the gull and the crow.

And that, friends, more or less brings you up to date with my photography!