I won’t say our fall migration has made up for the lack of birds we should have had this past summer, but at least it’s trying! However, we have had an obstacle to the number of birds in the yard for the past several weeks, and here it is…

These birds (accipiters) mainly feed on other birds and are especially fond of visiting areas where large populations of birds congregate… in other words, the yards containing bird feeders. I sent a photo to a raptor contact in Seattle, grousing about this visitor. His response: “When you feed birds, you feed ALL the birds!”

Moving on, here is a male Anna’s hummingbird who is apparently signing on for the winter. We have at least three Anna’s hummingbirds in the yard, and I think the other two are females but can’t rule out juvenile males. The first photo below was taken at some distance and doesn’t have the quality that closer photos might, but it shows the bird’s gorget reflecting which I think is interesting. On this occasion this bird spent considerable time hovering around the yard so I obtained a photo not involving flowers.

Again I had visits from at least two Yellow-rumped warblers. I’m still trying to figure out why they named these Yellow-rumped warblers! (As you can see, the yellow rump is not always visible.)