I returned from my morning obligations on January 3 to find that the yard was populated by an unusual number of birds.  I made the decision to skip my usual nap and do a little yard birding.  I found that most, but not all, of our winter visitors were well represented, even if available light for photography wasn’t.

First up, a couple of rather rare winter visitors, at least two Yellow-rumped warblers (Audubon’s race) that have been in the yard from time to time for at least the last month.  Sadly, early in December one of the warblers (not one of the ones pictured here) got into it with another bird and both were killed in a simultaneous window strike.  (I’m not sure whether or not these two photos are of the same bird but there were at least two in the yard at the same time.)

Here’s a photo of one of our many Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race), easily the most numerous species in the yard.

And here are a couple of photos of our Dark-eyed junco (Slate-colored race), a species that inexplicably has graced our yard for the last 11-12 winters.

This Chestnut-backed chickadee stopped by for a bath in the watercourse.

While I was photographing, this Brown creeper suddenly showed up beside the watercourse but flew before accessing the water.  This was the only species that was unexpectedly absent from our feeder watch that was part of the Christmas Bird Count!

We have at least two Spotted towhees in the yard.

We usually have one Fox sparrow each winter and this is it!

And a Song sparrow…

We have about 4-5 Golden-crowned sparrows that frequent the yard each winter.  This one is probably a male owing to the still relatively bright crown.

Rounding out the list is this probably-juvenile White-crowned sparrow with the tan crown.  We briefly had an adult in the yard but I wasn’t able to get a good photo of it.

There were several other species that visited but for which i didn’t obtain photos.