We had a storm blow through on the night of November 8-9 with heavy rains and high winds. When I woke for the second time and checked the radar I realized that a front had just blown through and there was no rain immediately behind it, so I could go for a walk in Washington Park without risking getting wet. I quickly dressed, drove to the park and set out on my morning walk. I was so taken with my weather radar acumen for having missed the rain that I failed to consider the wind. By the time I realized that I normally wouldn’t have entered the woods under such circumstances, I was almost halfway through my walk! The loud cracking of a tree limb in the woods near me reminded me of why I wouldn’t usually walk under such conditions.

Upon arriving back home I peered out the kitchen window and spied both a Yellow-rumped warbler and a Golden-crowned kinglet in the front yard at the same time (neither of which I was able to photograph) so despite less than ideal conditions I set up in the yard for a little photography. I ended up taking 46 photos and discarded about half of those. Here are a few of the ones I kept…

I just never get tired of photographing ‘our’ leucistic Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco, with us for the second winter!

And the star of the day, actually one of the first birds I photographed, was this male Ruby-crowned kinglet, pausing while in the middle of a bath! It’s unusual to be able to see the ruby crown in the field, but I sometimes have the opportunity to observe and photograph it when the bird is bathing. This photo shows just how bright the crown can be!