The afternoon of February 6, 2023, offered broken overcast skies and enough light to make photography worthwhile. I had some choices about how to spend my time around mid afternoon and I decided, on seeing a female Varied thrush in the yard, to spend a little time with photography.

I first photographed a male Anna’s hummingbird in the yard, occasionally mixing it up with another hummingbird. In this photo he’s watching “his” feeder.

Next up was the aforementioned female Varied thrush I had seen earlier. The thrushes have been regular visitors to the yard for the past couple of months, with one or more females being much more frequent visitors than males. They will probably soon return to the mountains for the spring/summer season.

We have one or more flocks of Bushtits visiting the yard several times a day with 10-12 hanging off an inverted suet feeder at one time. This female was part of the group.

But hidden in the mayhem of House sparrows, Golden-crowned sparrows and Dark-eyed juncos was a special visitor that I was lucky to be able to pick out of the crowd… a White-throated sparrow! This is a VERY rare visitor to our yard, having ben seen on only one previous occasion. (See my prior 2022 Yard Sparrows blog posted January 3, 2023.)

ADDENDUM: I saw and photographed two separate visits to the yard of a White-throated sparrow. At the time I was photographing the second visit it seemed to me that the bird’s bib wasn’t as bright, but since the species was such a rare visitor I assumed that the same bird had visited twice. I took many photos of the visitor and in processing the photos the images are displayed in sequential order, not facilitating comparison unless I take special steps to do so.

This evening I was reviewing my post and I had included a photo from each visit. In my post the photos appeared next to each other and I realized that indeed, I had photographed two different White-throated sparrows!!! See for yourself… carefully compare the two photos!

On January 23, 2023, I was sitting in the yard photographing birds when this accipiter (a juvenile Cooper’s hawk) flew in, scattering all of the other birds in the yard. I managed a few photos before it left.

Here it’s peering down into our brush pile to where many of the birds flee when the accipiter arrives.

I have a raptor expert in Seattle who has been very helpful in identifying accipiters for me. In this case, when processing photos, I noticed that I could get a partial reading of the band on the bird’s leg, ie “257”.

I contacted my expert in Seattle (who is himself a raptor bander) and he contacted the biologist who runs the raptor trapping program at SeaTac Airport who provided the following information.

“(The biologist) released two relocated juvenile Coops this winter in the Skagit area, one was 1204-25785, released March’s Point and the other 1204-25784 released along Bayview-Edison Rd.  Either one could have made its way to your yard.  Good luck getting the other numbers!”

This spurred me into re-examining my photos and in doing so I was able to discern two additional numbers… “85”. So this was a bird trapped at SeaTac Airport (to prevent collision strikes with planes) and released on March Point. The release location is a relatively short hop across or around Fidalgo Bay to our Cap Sante neighborhood.

This is the second banded juvenile Cooper’s hawk that has made an appearance in our yard and whose origin I was able to trace thanks to my Seattle contact.

In this blog during 2022, I believe I’ve mentioned several times that we’ve managed to attract eight different species of sparrows to our yard.   I was wrong!  As I was writing this and listing the sparrows I realized we have had NINE!  This seems like a remarkable achievement, not so much on our part for just providing a hospitable environment but the happenstance of a couple of relatively rare sparrows visiting and our happening to observe them.  In observance of this achievement I’m going to list the species and post photographs, all of which were taken in 2022 and in our yard.  I’m listing the species, in my estimation, from most common to rarest.  (The date in parentheses after the species is the date the photograph was taken.)

I consider these sparrows’ appearance (plumage) as distinctive with the possible exception of the Song and Fox sparrows and White-crowned and White-throated.  But things can get a bit dicier in spring and early summer when juveniles are added to the mix.  As always, I want to  emphasize the importance of observing behavior as a factor in identification.  Some of these birds would have gone unnoticed in a yard full of sparrows and other birds if not for their behavior.  

House sparrow  (male:1/7/2022; female: 4/16/22)

We were overrun with House sparrows this year as newly installed nest boxes in the neighborhood failed to be designed to exclude sparrows.  These sparrows have discovered that we are feeding superior food (sunflower seed and peanut pieces) and have therefore migrated to our yard for their food supply.  

Since there are significant differences in plumages between the sexes I included a photo of each sex.  

Dark-eyed junco – Oregon race  (male: 3/16/2022; Slate-colored: 11/20/2022; leucistic: 1/7/2022) 

This is mainly a winter visitor.  The birds leave in the spring to breed at higher elevations.   Until the explosion of House sparrows this year the juncos were formerly the most numerous sparrow in the yard.  For the past few years we have had one pair remain in the area and breed but the species is heavily predated by Brown-headed cowbirds.  

On November 20, 2022, we had a Slate-colored Dark-eyed junco show up ion the yard.  At this time this is not considered a separate species but a different ‘race’.  

I have included a photo of a leucistic Dark-eyed junco of the Oregon race, a one-of-a kind bird due to a genetic aberration.   This bird was with with us the past two winters  and into the spring but did not shown up this winter.  

Spotted towhee  (male: 3/12/2022) 

We usually have 1-3 pairs in the yard year-round.  This is another species heavily predated by Brown-headed cowbirds.  

Song sparrow  (4/14/2022) 

One or two birds of this species are in the yard mainly in the winter.  

Golden-crowned sparrow  (3/16/2022) 

This is strictly a winter bird in our yard, but we can have as many as ten or so.  This species leaves to breed to the north and east of us in the spring and doesn’t return until the fall.  

Fox sparrow  (4/14/2022) 

This bird is in the yard only in the winter.  We usually have only one or two.  

White-crowned sparrow  (4/24/2022) 

Although found in the greater area year-round, in our yard this sparrow is usually only a spring and summer visitor.  Sadly, it too is also predated by Brown-headed cowbirds.  

White-throated sparrow  (5/6/2022)

This is one of the rarest visitors to the yard, this year only staying for one or two days in the spring.  A couple of years ago we had one that settled in for several weeks a block from us and I photographed it extensively.  

Chipping sparrow  (5/13/2022) 

Our rarest sparrow, it was here for only a single day.  

There are at least three other sparrow species I have observed in the county that we have not observed in our yard… the Lincoln sparrow, the Savannah sparrow and the American Tree sparrow.

New Year’s Eve. I went out in the yard early in the afternoon for a little birding photography only to find the birds apparently had other ideas. I sat around for half an hour or so with hardly any birds showing, so decided to check the Cap Sante marina and the neighborhood. Things weren’t much better at the marina. However I want to mention a couple who had come into the northwest corner of the marina and cleaned up all the trash on the shoreline left by recent king tides!  After they left I photographed a Great Blue heron fishing along the shore. 

I saw, but was unable to photograph, a Yellow-rumped warbler in one of the marina parking lots. For years one of the areas along the side of one of the parking lots has seemed to attract fall Yellow-rumps, and there was at least one wintering over. 

I returned to the house listening to Beethoven’s (only) violin concerto, and wanting to listen to the entire piece I parked outside the garage instead of driving inside. As I sat in my car I was idly watching birds that had returned to the yard while I was away, a bird that flew into our denuded Golden Chain tree caught my attention.  It could have been a Song or Fox sparrow, but it was in a location not frequented by those species. I grabbed my camera from the seat beside me and discovered a rare winter  visitor… a Hermit thrush!  I obtained a few mediocre photos. Later, when processing my photos I looked out my NEW office window (with a commanding view of the yard) and thought I might have seen the thrush again, but I only saw it from the rear and couldn’t be sure. 

The birds had returned to the yard so I did also and took the following photos. 

Female Bushtit…

Female Northern flicker…

Female Dark-eyed junco – Oregon race…

Female Varied thrush…

We conducted a feeder watch was part of the Christmas Bird Count on December 30, 2022, the previous day. Inexplicably, our extended covey of about 20 California quail, which are in our yard multiple times virtually every day, failed to show at any time during the day of the count. And the Hermit thrush, a very rare visitor didn’t show until the day after the count and therefore couldn’t be counted.

Checking outdoors activity just before a planned afternoon nap, I saw about five Golden-crowned kinglets in the yard and decided to attempt a quick trip outdoors to try to obtain photographs. I only got one or two photos but by then I was into the activity in the yard and stayed for about an hour.

I tallied seven different sparrow species in the yard… House, Fox, Song, White-crowned, Golden-crowned, Spotted towhees and Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race). (We are overwhelmed by House sparrows thanks to non-discriminating neighbors who provide housing but less favorable habitat and less nutritious food than we do! The House sparrow activity dissuaded the kinglets and warbler from visiting the watercourse.)

Here is a comparison between two of what I consider the more difficult sparrow species to distinguish apart, the Fox sparrow (top photo) and the Song sparrow (bottom photo)…. both occasionally known as “little brown birds”. These birds are not especially gregarious and we apparently have only one of each.

We had at least one beautiful male Anna’s hummingbird in the yard (and a female or subadult as well).

We have a covey of at least 20 California quail that visit the yard daily and I was able to get this photo of two males above our stone bird bath.

Finally, while photographing all of the other activity in the yard, I was somewhat startled by this beautiful Yellow-rumped warbler that made about three appearances in the yard. This is the only good photo I was able to obtain, but it was good enough for me. Farther out in the yard I spied what were probably two additional Yellow-rumped warblers.