This post will cover a several-day period in mid-October.

On October 19, 2023, I photographed the two species of kinglet in the yard. The Ruby-crowned kinglet is the much rarer of the two in our yard, seen here in the Evergreen huckleberry bush adjacent to our watercourse.

The Golden-crowned kinglet is a much more frequent visitor… I’ve counted as many as three in the yard at the same time.

This, and another male Anna’s hummingbird have been hanging around the yard now for several days.

I photographed this Song sparrow on October 20, 2023.

This somewhat similar sparrow is a Fox sparrow, photographed October 22, 2023…

On October 21, 2023, I thought disaster had struck when I failed to download (or find) photos of a male Golden-crowned kinglet with its crown raised that I had taken during the day. It was a rare opportunity for photographing the bird with its crown raised. I eventually managed to find the photos…they turned out to be of much lower quality than I had anticipated.

In my efforts to find/recover the kinglet photos I discovered that I had taken over 10,000 photos with my Nikon D850 camera that I had purchased new in March of this year!

On October 22, 2023, we had a brief influx of Varied thrushes enter the yard. There were at least four in and around the yard at the same time. These were the first we had seen in a couple of weeks. These photos were all taken at some distance (30-40′) as the birds are quite wary, especially when they first arrive. (The first photo is of a female and the second photo is a male.)

And now back to kinglets. the next two photos are of the same male Golden-crowned kinglet on the same perch. Looking at the first photo you could easily assume that it is a female since there is no red/orange in the crown. But you would be wrong!

In this second photo you can see the reddish tinge that the male hides so effectively when not bathing, courting or alarmed.

And finally, a photo of a female House finch getting a drink of water. This isn’t the only species I’ve seen perform this feat! (Don’t try this yourself!)