I was able to spend a little time in the yard on September 30, 2024. For quite a while the yard was virtually empty, but late in the afternoon a diverse group of small birds began entering the yard. This collection of birds consists of some of our smallest visitors.

One of my first small visitors was a male Anna’s hummingbird accessing one of many salvias planted in the yard just to attract hummingbirds. (The salvias are a great yard plant… they don’t freeze, the deer don’t bother them snd they bloom from spring to fall.)

This male Golden-crowned kinglet appeared in the yard and spent considerable time posing very near to me, giving me an excellent opportunity for a lot of photos.

The surprise of the afternoon was a Ruby-crowned kinglet, a relatively rare visitor to the yard. I was lucky that I was able to obtain the following photo because the bird quickly moved higher in the canopy and intermingled with a flock of Bushtits where I lost it. .

Speaking of Bushtits, I had two visits from one or more flocks. The one pictured below is a male.

Finally, this Brown creeper showed up for a bath after touring the yard. As I’ve mentioned before, this is a difficult bird to photograph because it is almost constantly moving and is so camouflaged that my camera seems to have trouble focusing on the bird.