The birding photography opportunities have been coming so fast and steadily that I haven’t had much time to keep up with my blog posts. On October 28 I noticed a large number of American robins assailing neighborhood madrone trees so I drove up the street about a block and used my car as a blind to photograph the feeding. I took over 300 photographs this day and at least half of them were of robins in the madrone trees.

While photographing the robins this male House sparrow flew to the top of a nearby bush and presented a classic pose.

Back in the yard, this Fox sparrow visited for a drink from our stone bird bath.

This male Hairy woodpecker is probably the same one you saw in my last post, ie, the only one coming to the yard these days. We hope a female shows up before next spring so that this guy doesn’t have to leave the area to find a mate as apparently happened this year. Incidentally, the woodpecker is on a dead tree/branch that I appropriated elsewhere and ‘planted’ in the yard for a staging stick. I think you’ll agree that it serves its purpose.

This Bewick’s wren enjoys the suet feeder, mostly feeding off scraps that fall to the ground under the feeder. But the wren is not beyond making a quick trip up to the feeder if it runs out of food below. It uses this rock, on which it is perched, as a launching pad for it’s trip up to the inverted feeder. Knowing the wren likes this rock allowed me to get about a dozen photos on just one of its visits.

This was a big day for visits from female Red crossbills, although I never saw the male. I think this first photo is of a juvenile, the next photo is probably an adult female, and the third photo is apparently of a mature female.

Finally… (you’ll remember from prior posts there’s always a “finally”), here’s a photo of one of my companions (a Townsend’s chipmunk) who keeps me company from time to time. It doesn’t look like he/she will be suffering any food shortages this winter, although temporary food storage problems may present a challenge!

I had another great birding photography/observation day in the yard on Tuesday, October 27, 2020. I had many of the same birds/species show up but in addition I had a few additional visitors.

A Brown creeper usually makes a couple of trips today to its favorite bird bath at the far edge of the yard. I like this photo for several reasons… it shows the bird against colorful madrone tree bark, it shows the bird’s gigantic foot span, and it shows the bird’s stiff tail feathers which, like woodpeckers and other climbing birds, allow it to brace itself against a tree.

We have more than our share of House sparrows due in part to neighborhood residents who have bird houses with entry holes that are too large to exclude them. A 1 1/8″ diameter (or smaller) hole will usually exclude House sparrows.

I mentioned in my last post that I failed to obtain a photo of our male Hairy woodpecker visitor. I was more successful on this day. Note the size of the beak, one of the best ways to distinguish this bird from its smaller lookalike, the Downy woodpecker.

You can see how similar these two birds are in terms of markings Here’s a male Downy woodpecker.

Here’s a Ruby-crowned kinglet, apparently a female, availing itself from a dwindling supply of evergreen huckleberries. The Ruby-crowned kinglets are significantly rarer in our yard than their cousins, the Golden-crowned kinglets.

And a little fuller view of the bird…

The Hermit thrush was back in the yard again, a rare and welcome visitor.

There are probably other ways to separate identification of the Hermit and Swainson’s thrushes, but I rely to some extent on the season (spring/summer for the Swainson’s and fall/winter for the Hermit’s) but mostly on the contrasting reddish color of the bird’s tail which can be seen clearly in this second photo of the Hermit thrush. (I’m not sure my high school English teacher would have approved of the foregoing sentence!)

Moving on, here’s the same Song sparrow with the truncated mandible I’ve shown before. It seems to be doing quite well despite the handicap. It’s got a friend in the yard with a normal beak, the only way I can tell that we have at least two.

And now for the star of this post. It’s NOT this Bewick’s wren pictured below, although I’m always happy to get a photograph of this bird.

It’s this rare (for our yard), diminutive, secretive and very active visitor that engaged in a prolonged bath only a few feet away from me… a Pacific wren. This is the first time that I can remember seeing a wren of any species bathe in one of our water features, and I obtained a wealth of photos! This session probably provided my best ever Pacific wren photos!

While I was concentrating on photographing the wren a male Red crossbill hurried into the watercourse and made a quick exit before I could get a photo. When there are a lot of birds in the yard there’s a lot of intense identification and prioritization taking place in addition to photography, and it doesn’t help that almost all the birds are moving around. If I thought that anyone was interested I could tell how we handle this problem at my sister’s place in Texas, but I’ll save that for another time.

I had a great day for yard photography on Sunday, October 25, 2020.  It began, as many of my days do, with a morning nap!  When I woke my wife gave me a list of birds she had seen in the yard while I had been napping.  It included Red crossbills and a Townsend’s warbler.  This was motivation enough for me to bundle up (the temperature was in the mid-30s) and head outside with my photography gear.  While I reasoned that the warbler was a late migrant and wouldn’t be back, there was at least a slight chance it might still be in the area and there was also the possibility that it might be part of a late wave of migrants motivated by the unseasonably cold weather.  

I no sooner positioned myself outside when I saw the leucistic male Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco that had been in the yard a couple of times in the past few days, and for which I was desperate for a photo.  These markings would have made this bird the only one in existence with these specific markings.  The bird initially remained in the trees in the outer reaches of the yard, but I finally got a halfway decent photo of the bird exposed on a madrone limb.  A while later the bird fully revealed itself and I obtained over 20 good photos.  

The next interesting bird was a male Varied thrush which entered the yard to access a stone bird bath.  Later in the day I would photograph a female that entered the yard for the same purpose.  (I rarely, if ever, see them bathe, unlike their American robin cousins who are capable of taking some of the most active baths in the business.)  During my two sessions in the yard, with a ‘warm the fingers interlude’, I had several visits by one or more of the male thrushes.  

Next up was a family of Red crossbills, a male and at least two females/juveniles.  

We’ve had a lot of Golden-crowned sparrows in the yard, perhaps more than I’ve seen in past years, and I enjoyed seeing and photographing a couple of the birds reaping the harvest from our evergreen huckleberry bush beside the watercourse.  

Next up was yet another rare visitor, although not its first appearance in the yard this season… a Hermit thrush!  This visitor was clearly attracted to the evergreen huckleberry bush so I guess it wasn’t the bird’s first trip into the yard.  After it left the watercourse area I later saw it plucking madrone berries from clusters.  

All of the birds mentioned above made multiple forays into the yard, giving me multiple opportunities for photographs.  

The only rarity (for our yard) I saw but was unable to photograph was a male Hairy woodpecker that made a couple of trips to the peanut and suet feeders.  We had a male Hairy woodpecker with us for most of the last winter but it left for the breeding season and we only recently had one begin to visit again. 

With the exception of the cold weather, I couldn’t have asked for a better day for birding photography in the yard!

I spent considerable time in the yard birding on October 17, 2020. The day was heavily overcast and quite cool sitting with little activity on my part. My birding day got started when we returned from breakfast/farmers market and I saw a bird fly from the yard high into one of the fir trees. I could see nothing about the bird other than its fight path due to lower light conditions and backlighting, but the flight path was one often taken by Red crossbills exiting the yard. This motivated me to retrieve my camera and have a seat outside.

Immediately after sitting a bird few across the yard and landed in a grove of young fir trees. Fortunately I had a window to see through the limbs and realized that it was a male Red-breasted Sapsucker... I had seen one at a friends’s house in the neighborhood the previous week. It’s a very rare bird here for us and maybe only the second one I can remember seeing in the yard in the twelve years we’ve lived at this location.

I didn’t have to wait long for the crossbills! A male Red crossbill soon showed above the watercourse and he was soon followed by the rest of his group.

We have neighbors who called and said they were overrun with Pine siskins, and the group apparently finally made it to our yard. At one time there were probably at least 20 Pine siskins in and around the watercourse with more scattered in the trees around the yard. These two photos highlight what can be the color variation within the species, perhaps between the sexes.

Later I got several nice photos of this Black-capped chickadee above the watercourse.

The last birds I’ll showcase were male House finches. We seem to have considerably more males than females around the yard. (I can’t be sure these two photos aren’t of the same bird.)

On October 15, 2020, I spent about four hours of my afternoon in the yard watching and photographing birds.  There were a lot of birds in the yard and, unlike periods in the previous week or so, the birds were in the yard almost continuously.  Since we had a few unusual birds that I was unable to photograph I decided to make a record of what I had seen.  It wasn’t a great day for photography, and I wasn’t able to photograph two of the birds I would have most liked to: the Pacific wren and the Hairy woodpecker. Here’s the list of my sightings:  

Quail, California (≥6) 

The first group that appeared consisted of four males and two females.  The quails made two or three appearances and each time the group would consist of six quail, but with a different mix of sexes.  

Heron, Great Blue (in flight) 

Creeper, Brown 

Nuthatch, Red-breasted 

Chickadee, Chestnut-backed 

Chickadee, Black-capped 

Kinglet, Ruby-crowned (x2) 

Kinglet, Golden-crowned (x2) 

Flicker, Northern (f)

Hummingbird, Anna’s (m&f) 

Woodpecker, Downy (m, f) 

Woodpecker, Hairy (m) 

This is the first sighting of a Hairy woodpecker since last winter or early spring.  We had a male here last winter but it disappeared when breeding season arrived.

Wren, Bewick’s 

Wren, Pacific (x2) 

This is a rare and difficult to photograph bird for the yard with only one or two sightings per year.  My initial sighting was of the bird scurrying under some bushes but it (or another) returned later and came within a couple of feet of my feet.  

Raven, Common (in flight) 

Towhee, Spotted 

Junco, Dark-eyed – Oregon 

Sparrow, Golden-crowned 

Sparrow, Fox 

Sparrow, House 

Sparrow, Song 

I had photographed this bird about a week ago.  It has a lower mandible that is shorter than its upper mandible and is therefore easily identifiable.  

Robin, American 

Crossbill, Red (2f/j, f/j) 

My first sighting involved two females/juveniles that landed on a bird bath only about five feet from me, too close for me to bring my lens to bear or focus on the birds.  Later a single female/juvenile came to the yard and I was able to get some photos. 

Finch, House (4m,?f)

At one time there were at least four male House finches in the yard.  Last week I photographed a female Purple finch in the yard and I carefully examined all of the female finches to ensure they were’t Purple finches.

Siskin, Pine (≥10) 

I received a phone call while birding that a neighbor had at least 40 Pine siskins in the yard, spurring me to count the ones I was seeing at the same time.  The siskins have eruptions from time to time and they were scarce last winter but returned in bulk this spring.  

Goldfinch, American (2) 

Starling, European 

Total: 27 species 

Deer, Black-tailed 

Squirrel, Eastern Gray 

Chipmunk, Townsend’s 

raccoons (2 adults, 4 juveniles)

(n) = number of the species seen at one time 

(xn) = number of separate visits made by the species