Our day here in Anacortes began with rain so I skipped my usual morning walk in the park. The rain didn’t last long and I decided on a birding excursion, my first of the fall season, when it became apparent that the weather was going to improve.  

I photographed a Capian tern and Bald eagle on March Point.

My first good photos were of Savanna sparrows in a field on Fir Island.

 In the same area I was surprised to lure a male Common yellowthroat out of the weeds along a ditch when ‘pishing’ to gain a Song sparrow’s attention.  

Further along my way I photographed this Great Blue heron. 

I ran into a birding friend at one of the wildlife access areas and he told me about a Black-necked stilt at another of the wildlife access areas (Hayton). I later photographed the stilt along with several Greater yellowlegs. This is the first stilt I’ve ever photographed in the Pacific Northwest!

I was also told that there was a White-faced ibis in the area but I didn’t see it.

I obtained some photos of a Song sparrow while in the area of the stilt.

At the HQ tract on Fir Island I saw, but didn’t get good photos of, about ten Wood ducks.

There were already at least hundreds, if not thousands, of Snow geese, Canada geese (and probably other species of geese) both on the ground and flying over the island. They’ll be with us for the winter. 

And that’s my early season bird report!  

We’re beginning to transition to our cooler fall weather. I’ve been disappointed in the number of fall migrants entering the yard, but on the other hand, some of our winter residents are beginning to arrive.

As is my usual habit lately, on September 23, 2021, I spent time in the afternoon monitoring the yard for birding activity. The (Oregon) Dark-eyed juncos are beginning to arrive and will soon be our most numerous yard-bird species, assuming that I can keep discouraging the House sparrows. I continue to marvel at the feather patterns in the detailed photos I get, something that may not be evident in the photos I post to my blog.

We have one very active juvenile Spotted towhee in the yard that has figured out how to garner peanut halves, and it’s a beautiful specimen of a bird! I think the two sets of adults that were around the yard for the breeding season may have departed the immediate area.

Golden-crowned sparrows have returned from their breeding grounds north and east of here. Our first arrival on September 10 seemed to be a juvenile which I at first had trouble identifying, but now several adults have arrived. By winter we should have 6-8 residents which will be with us until the sporing.

For the past couple of weeks we have had at least one Golden-crowned kinglet pass through the yard every day, but I have yet this year to obtain a decent photo of one.

There are perhaps two problems with what I perceive as a relative dearth of migrants this fall. As I stated in a prior blog post, I was overrun with House sparrows this fall. I responded by restricting the amount and kinds of food available to them and that has been a creative success. On the other hand, over the past several weeks we have had a rather unwelcome (especially to other birds) visitor to the yard, often several times a day. This is one of perhaps a pair of juvenile Cooper’s hawks whose main prey is other birds!

But back to September 23… as I was about to retire for the day I noticed a large group of raccoons heading for the yard from the adjacent parkland. I realized that their path would probably bring them in front of my camera lens, so I waited patiently. I wasn’t disappointed! There were at least five in the main group, but I believe that two others crossed our alley before the main group was separated by a walking neighbor.

On September 20, 2021, I was about halfway through a rare at-home margarita, watching the 5:30pm national news with dinner pending when I received a phone call from neighbors.  It seems that they were watching a large owl chase an Eastern Gray squirrel around a tree trunk in the Cap Sante wetland and they wanted me to come down to watch and try to photograph the owl.  I was reluctant because of the aforementioned factors and I had just spent a couple of frustrating hours in the yard unsuccessfully waiting to photograph some interesting birds that I had hoped might happen by.  Added to my reluctance was the fact that the light was fading and conditions didn’t lend themselves to quality photography.  (Back to the owl situation in a minute.)  

On 9/19 I had a brief glimpse (and gotten a couple of bad photographs for records purposes) of our first Golden-crowned kinglet of the fall/winter season. I made several trips to monitor the yard on 9/20 and on almost every one there was initially a kinglet in the yard, but it never presented an opportunity for photographs.  (On my last trip out there were two in the yard… which quickly disappeared once I got settled.)  And sadly, for all the considerable time I spent in the yard only one bird (a Spotted towhee) availed itself of the watercourse.  I photographed a few of the usual residents, including this male Anna’s hummingbird. 

At at one time three Northern flickers were dispersed by what has become a regular, generally unwelcome visitor, a large female/juvenile Cooper’s hawk (confirmed by a hawk expert via photographs by a hawk bander in Seattle).  

But back to the dilemma at hand… whether or not to leave the house and try to photograph the owl.  Under duress from the neighbor I grabbed my camera gear and drove to the wetland intending to use my vehicle as a blind.  When I arrived it wasn’t difficult to find the owl… it was extremely active, flying from perch to perch and apparently hunting.  I noted that the owl was a Barred owl.  We have occasionally had a Great Horned owl in the neighborhood but it is much rarer and this owl had no protruding ears. 

I followed the owl from tree to tree and snapped what photos I was able.  At one point I briefly lost sight of the owl as it flew close to the ground, and when it again popped up on a branch it was carrying what I am assuming was a rat!  I watched (and photographed) the owl as it flew to a couple of different perches and proceeded to eat the rat!  

After consuming the rat the owl continued its hunting activities, moving from perch to perch.  I finally lost the owl when it flew into some trees on the property of the friend who had initially called me.  I’m looking forward to photographing the owl in the coming weeks when I have better light and autumn has done its work and more of the leaves are off the trees.  

By early September the number of fall migrants arriving in the yard have slowed to a trickle… or even less. I am now spending as much as a couple of hours a day sitting in the yard with no sightings at all. I’ve at least temporarily solved my House sparrow problem. I’ve greatly reduced the number of feeders and the kinds of food I am putting out. This has discouraged sparrows but it has also resulted in other birds departing. The lack of food should not affect migrants because they don’t expect food and generally wouldn’t be attracted to the food (sunflower seed, peanuts and suet) that i have in my feeders. But… they might skip the yard because of the lack of bird activity. However they might also be put off by the 20-30 House sparrows that were almost continuously in the yard a week or so ago.

On September 6, 2021, I logged a single migrant… a female Wilson’s warbler. She was very accommodating, flitting around the watercourse for maybe about ten minutes. I have a variety of staging objects (bushes, sticks and rocks) located around the watercourse which gives birds inviting places to explore and perch. It gave me the opportunity to take 87 photos, and I’m almost (but not quite) embarrassed to say that I retained 27 after processing. Here’s my case as to why…

These first two photos are from several that I consider the best.

These next two photos are ones that I decided to retain even though I rated them among the lowest of those I retained.

By way of explanation regarding photo quality, I export all of these photos from Adobe Lightroom at 4MP, so what gets posted on this website doesn’t truly reflect the quality of the original photos. ALL of these photos are of a considerably reduced quality from those on my computer.

By August 31, 2021, our juvenile Western tanagers and Black-headed grosbeaks had apparently left the area and left me with an overwhelming population of House sparrows. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve temporarily stopped feeding birds and hope they return to whoever facilitated their propagation!

I went out in the yard late in the afternoon, with only about an hour of light left for photography. We hadn’t had any warblers in several days so I wasn’t optimistic that I would see any this afternoon. However, shortly after settling down I spied a female Wilson’s warbler in the yard but it never got in a position where I could get any good photos of it.

Over the next hour I had two Orange-crowned warbler visits, but neither provided an opportunity for any photographs. Finally, just before I had to give up due too lack of light, I had a final Orange-crowned warbler visit. This time the warbler came down to the area of the watercourse and I was able to obtain a couple of good photos.