I had an interesting day birding on Monday, December 23, 2024, which I’ll relate below, but on the previous day I had a somewhat unusual visitor… a Yellow-rumped warbler, a female or juvenile. It spent several minutes in the yard and I was able to get several good photos. 

I spent at least a couple of pleasant hours in the yard Monday afternoon (overcast with no wind and 51 degrees) and had many avian visitors. None were unusual but some of the diets I witnessed were. Much of my time was spent watching an Orange-crowned warbler feed in a denuded Golden Chain tree. One might assume that it was plucking insects from the dried seed pods, but the warbler also visited the suet feeder and the platform feeder with hulled sunflower seeds, so I don’t know that it wasn’t eating the seeds in the Golden Chain tree. I clearly saw it consuming a sunflower seed!  It might be transitioning from an insectivore to an omnivore… evolution right before my very eyes!  

I also had at least three visits from a Bewick’s wren (while it was waiting for a name change… a little birding humor!). It was in the yard to scrounge suet fallen from the suet feeder, but wasn’t beneath accessing the source. 

I had an uncharacteristically brief visit from a Brown creeper, usually a regular visitor but one I hadn’t seen recently. 

I had visits from both species of kinglets, the Ruby-crowned kinglet and the Golden-crowned kinglet. Oddly enough, on this day the Ruby-crowned kinglet was the more frequent and photogenic visitor. 

I had several visits from bands of Bushtits and both male and female Anna’s hummingbirds. 

Here are a couple of photos of Golden-crowned sparrows, winter mainstays in the yard. 

Merry Christmas and a safe, prosperous and happy new year!

On the afternoon of December 4, 2024, I spent an hour or so in the yard observing and photographing birds. Perhaps the most interesting of my observations involved the Orange-crowned warbler that has been visiting the yard for several days, feeding from both the suet and peanut feeders and this day even visiting the platform feeder holding sunflower seed. 

I had six species of sparrows: Spotted towhees, Dark-eyed. (Oregon) juncos and House, Golden-crowned, a Song and a Fox sparrows. The juncos were by far the most numerous birds in the yard.  With the inclusion of White-crowned sparrows and White-throated sparrows seen earlier in the year, that brings the total number of sparrows seen in the yard for the year to eight.  

I had both species of kinglets, Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned. Until recently the latter has been a rare visitor but this day I had two visits and I think one of the visits was by a pair. 

Two species of wrens, Bewick’s and Pacific, very briefly visited the yard but I was unable to get photos of either. 

At least two male Anna’s hummingbirds are visiting the yard. I have no way of determining if these two photos are of the same hummingbird,

I had multiple visits from one or more flocks of Bushtits. This one is a female but for what is probably a first in my Bushtit photography, I was able to photograph a male and female together.

Very late in the afternoon of the previous day (12/3/20214) I had a male Varied thrush feeding in the yard but there was no sign of the bird today. I thought the snow in the mountains would bring more of the thrushes down to the yard, but it hasn’t happened yet.