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!