On September 16, 2022, shortly after 7:30pm, I was in the kitchen and glanced outside. In the rapidly fading light I saw a bird crossing the ground between some bushes and our watercourse. My sense of curiosity was piqued because it seemed too late (in terms of darkness) for any of our local birds to be active and approaching the watercourse. 

I was unable to see any distinguishing markings on the bird due to the darkness so I picked up my binoculars knowing they would give me better vision. There, at the bottom of the watercourse was a Hermit thrush!  

The Hermit thrush is a fall migrant to our area and will spend the winter in the greater area. Interestingly, we have a bird very similar in appearance (the Swainson’s thrush) which is on an opposite schedule… it arrhves in the spring, spends the summers here and departs by the fall. 

As I excitedly watched the thrush it was soon joined by yet another!  I believe this is the first time I have ever seen two at the same time, perhaps a reference to its name. In a moment the two thrushes were joined by yet another!  We now had three thrushes in or around our watercourse, and there wasn’t nearly enough light for photos!  

Since I had seen the thrushes so late in the day I thought there was a chance they might spend the night in the immediate area and return to the yard or watercourse in the morning. I wasn’t able to go outside and monitor the watercourse the next morning, but periodic checking revealed no thrushes. 

That afternoon (September 17), shortly after 3:30pm, I had a brief period to monitor the yard before meeting friends for an early dinner. I glanced out the kitchen window and saw a single American goldfinch in the watercourse and a few chickadees around the yard. I took my camera outside and noted the goldfinch had flown, but there, sitting on one of my staging sticks at the head of the watercourse was a Hermit thrush!  

I quickly positioned my chair but when I looked back at the watercourse the thrush had gone. I sat quietly and a moment or two later the thrush reappeared and I was able to get several good photos, some of which are displayed below. 

In processing the photos I realized the bird I photographed was a juvenile born this season and was probably on its first migration. I have no way of knowing if it was part of what was probably a family group I had observed the previous evening. 

Aptly named for its retiring ways, the Hermit Thrush is a bird of dense forest understory and thicket that is often heard before it’s seen.

Fall Migration 

Sunday, September 4, 2022, dawned cloudy, providing me an opportunity for some bird photography in the yard.  We had had a long run of sunny days and although I spent considerable time in the yard over the past several weeks my photos weren’t all that good due to colors being somewhat washed out in the sunlight and images exhibiting the high contrast between sun and shadows.  For birding photography, sunlight usually causes problems! I could go on, but this isn’t a birding photography lesson.  

Sometime just before what I would consider midmorning I looked out the window and spied an Orange-crowned warbler in the yard.  By the time I could get outside with my camera the bird was gone, but this was the second omen of the day (the cloudy weather having been the first).  By midmorning I was outside with my camera ready for a little birding action!  

Things were at first a little slow… but another Orange-crowned warbler visit gave me hope!  I birded until about mid-afternoon and over the course of 4-5 hours I had at least 8-10 Orange-crowned warbler visits from at least two different birds.  (One of the birds was crippled so I knew I had at least two.)  Soon thereafter we had a visit from a Black-headed grosbeak, either a female or a juvenile.  There were two more visits from grosbeaks during that time, including one that descended to the watercourse and gave me the opportunity for many good photographs.  During my birding time I had the following visitors… 

a Yellow warbler, 

a female Rufous hummingbird (time to get migration underway!), 

three visits from a very shy female Western tanager (no photos), 

a visit from an Empidonax flycatcher, possibly a Pacific Slope flycatcher, 

and visits from some of this year’s juveniles (House sparrows, a Spotted towhee, American goldfinches, a White-crowned sparrow, a Dark-eyed junco and American robins).  (Gone from the landscape were several of the juvenile Brown-headed cowbirds that were raised by some of these same species this year.)   

Total photos for the day: 468/(259), which entails hours of processing, editing and organizing using Adobe Lightroom.  

So here are some of my photos for the day… 

This little friend (a native Townsend’s chipmunk) provides my entertainment during long periods of bird inactivity in the yard. Earlier this spring we had as many as four in the yard, but now I’m down to one, or uncommonly two. They hibernate during the winter so it probably won’t be around too much longer.

This was one of my earlier visitors during the day. It’s a Black-headed grosbeak which I judge to be either a female or a juvenile.

Warblers are notoriously difficult to identify, and fall warblers, when dealing with non-breeding plumage, end-of-season plumage, females and juveniles are the most difficult to identify. I’m going out on a proverbial limb (pun intended) to identify this as a Yellow warbler. (As always, in the name of accuracy, I welcome feedback regarding identifications.)

And another photo of the same bird…

I believe this to be a juvenile Orange-crowned warbler, by far the most numerous warbler of the day. (Note the tumor on the bird’s left leg.)

Another Orange-crowned warbler, this one probably an adult. In the spring/summer my standards for this species’ identification is more or less uniform coloring with a slightly darker green back and pale yellow breast. It has a broken eye ring with a dark line running through it, but the overall impression (as you can see) is that of an undistinguished, pale yellow-green bird.

Another Orange-crowned warbler image…

Finally.. an image of a bird on which we should all be able to agree… a juvenile American robin! lt seems rather late for juveniles, but they have been dribbling in over the past month or so.