On Monday, October 14, 2019, I had a combination of driving in the neighborhood and yard photography. I began the day monitoring the madrone berries to photograph what was eating them. This European starling, and a few of its friends, were in one of the madrone trees.

In the past couple of days I had gotten brief views of male Varied thrushes in the madrone trees, but photos proved difficult to come by. Persistence paid off… I finally obtained a photo of a (male) Varied thrush eating madrone berries.

For the past couple of weeks or so we have had at least one female Varied thrush visiting the water features in the yard. The bird proved extremely cautious and despite my best efforts, I had not been able to get a photo. Upon arriving back at the house today I finally obtained a photo of a female Varied thrush… at first entering the yard…

and after a few minutes entering our watercourse.

About the same time a couple of Yellow-rumped warblers (Audubon’s race) accessed the watercourse.

Back on the road again I obtained this photo of a male House sparrow…

and this male Spotted towhee.