Birding in the yard has been generally uninteresting this summer. We have had a Black-headed grosbeak or two that have stopped by the yard, but they don’t come often and they are extremely wary… any movement on my part sends them out of the yard. The most interesting birds in the yard have been the various juveniles that have appeared. The Brown-headed cowbirds have done their damage despite the adults being almost entirely absent from the yard. Spotted towhee and White-crowned sparrow nests have both been parasitized and we’ve had several juvenile Brown-headed cowbirds show up in the yard.
European starlings have fledged and are showing up at the suet feeder and watercourse. The juveniles pictured here are transitioning into their adult plumage.
As long and I’m into the ‘rogues gallery’, I’ll include these photos of male House sparrows, a couple of too many visiting the yard. We’re overrun with House sparrows, the result of neighborhood residents allowing them to propagate and then the birds coming to our yard for better habitat with more nutritious foods and running water.
One of the bright spots (pun intended) are the male House finches coming to the yard. We’ve had several interesting males, including bright ones and those with an orange color.
But the primary reason for this post is a pair of visitors I had on August 13, the day that all of the photos in this post were taken. I was encouraged in that the day began overcast, the first such day in several weeks. The overcast provides much better light for birding photography than bright sunlight.
I’ve been hoping for several weeks for visits from Cedar waxwings. A couple of weeks ago I got a glimpse of at lest one in the watercourse but it left before I could get outside with my camera. On this day I saw one of the waxwings on one of our Golden Chain trees just above the watercourse and was able to photograph it and a presumed mate extensively as the birds made two separate trips to the watercourse to bathe.
I had a good day of photography on July 22. The day began overcast (perfect for birding photography) and I spent about two hours photographing birds in the yard before the sun broke out around noon. In about two hours I spent in the yard I took almost 300 photos. I had only one somewhat unusual visitor (a juvenile Black-headed grosbeak) but our usual visitors were unusually amenable to photos, posing on staging objects placed strategically around the yard.
This photo is of a juvenile Red-breasted nuthatch. We’ve had at least two families visit the yard this spring/summer.
We’ve had several successful Black-capped chickadee families visit the yard. This is another juvenile.
This Chestnut-backed chickadee has been in the yard for several months now. As you can see, it has a severely deformed right leg which sticks backwards at an angle and is totally useless for perching and across-the-ground mobility. It flies well but is somewhat shaky on perches and standing. It even manages to access the inverted suet feeder and seems to be dealing with its handicap very well!
One or two Eurasian Collared doves have returned to the yard after a several month absence. Last fall/winter we had as many as six (too many!) but a neighbor saw a Peregrine falcon thin the ranks by a couple of birds almost in our yard.
We’ve been almost overrun with Northern flickers in the neighborhood. I monitored a nest in the neighborhood for several weeks which netted many photos. The adults of more than one family are now visiting the yard and juveniles are abundant! This juvenile was very cute with it’s feathers ruffed up… it and a sibling were being fed suet by an adult male.
We’ve had a good many hummingbirds this season but I haven’t been able to get as many photos as in past seasons. We rather severely pruned our salivas last season and the cold weather this spring probably didn’t help… they seem to be rather late blooming. The adult male Rufous hummingbirds have apparently already migrated. This Rufous hummingbird is feeding on one of my favorite salvias.
Saving the best for last, I noticed this apparent juvenile American goldfinch on staging sticks near the watercourse. Its breast (only) appears wet although I didn’t actually see it in the water. The interesting thing about this bird is that in 20+ years of birding and in taking hundreds of American goldfinch photos (both wet and dry), I can never remember having seen or photographed one with black underlying feathers on the breast.
It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, but it’s not because I haven’t been taking bird photos. The May influx of migrants has definitely slowed… I don’t believe I’ve seen a warbler since very early June. I’ve mainly had to content myself with photos of juveniles visiting the yard.
I spent the afternoon of July 15, 2022, in the yard. We had a small flock of Bushtits arrive, the first I have seen in a couple of months. Bushtits usually visit the yard several times a day, but at the beginning of breeding season the birds paired up and we were left with one pair visiting the yard. But the pair eventually disappeared and we have seen none until this day.
We’ve had several families of chickadees visiting the yard, apparently indicating a successful breeding season in the area. We have both Black-capped chickadees and Chestnut-sided chickadees, and this photo is one of the former.
This is a photo of one of our Chestnut-sided chickadees.
This is a bright male House finch. There’s a large range in color on the males, and this is one of the brighter ones. We’ve also had a few that ranged to a faded orange which are less common.
This is a juvenile White-crowned sparrow, a species that has nested near our property but been paraticized by Brown-headed cowbirds in past years. This year the species has managed to raise a single chick which visits our yard on a regular basis. (Unfortunately since this date I’ve seen juvenile cowbirds being fed by both Dark-eyed (Oregon) juncos and a White-crowned sparrow.)
At the end of the winter we had about 17 adult California quail visiting the yard. They paired up during the breeding season and all but about two pair disappeared. Some of them are now returning with chicks, one pair with eight juveniles and one pair with about a dozen juveniles.
And finally, my featured visitor of the day, a juvenile Black-headed grosbeak! We’ve had occasional visits from adult grosbeaks this summer, but not the stream of grosbeaks we’ve had in past years.
For the several days we’ve had a male Western tanager visit the yard. It’s been rather shy and hasn’t visited the watercourse, which I would have thought would be our yard’s main attraction. This (June 1, 2022) afternoon, while the watercourse pump was off, the tanager again visited the yard. I obtained these photos, but feel I can get even better photos once our house construction project lulls, the watercourse is up and functioning and I can make a few changes to our staging objects. While I was in the house I saw the tanager revisit the yard and repeatedly access our inverted suet feeder! (It’s normally a berry/insect eater, so the suet was a complete surprise!) I hope the tanager will be a regular visitor and give me additional opportunities for even better photos!
It’s been quite a while since I posted to my blog and I’ll share the reasons.
First of all, on the negative side, I’ve been dealing with issues regarding my watercourse since April 4, 2022. (As you read this you might want to keep in mind this is the abbreviated version of my experience with getting the watercourse finished!) In late March our watercourse was losing too much water so I contracted with the company which had originally constructed the watercourse (and made two major modifications since) to effect repairs, which they surmised required a new liner. The company installed a new liner on April 4 but the watercourse then lost water at a rate greater than before, so I turned off the pump which resulted in the loss of my greatest migratory bird attractant. I was able to restart the pump after more work was done on April 30, but the work on the watercourse is still not finished some 8+ weeks after the initial liner replacement.
Despite the loss of the watercourse, we’ve had a stellar migration this year! There have been several days I’ve taken over 300 photos of birds in the yard in one day, and one day of over 400 photos! All of these photos require not only time in the yard but a considerable amount of processing time.
This year, for the first time, I decided to try to document daily sightings of migrants in some detail so that I would have an idea in future years of just when the peak migration might occur and how spread out it might be. I’m aware there are many factors that affect migration but some research and knowledge is better than none. This aspect of recording required me to develop a format and methodology for my observations and to make modifications to fit my data. I also took the time to learn relevant four-letter bird designations to help with my record-keeping. This all required a considerable another considerable chunk of time.
Finally, toward the end of May we embarked on a major repair and remodeling project with our house, and that has also cost me some birding interruptions and time.
So for the reasons I’ve listed, my blog project slipped. My original goal was to publish photos on the blog in a timely, sequential manner, but spending several hours in the yard each day, documenting my sightings and then spending more hours processing the photos just ate all of my available time. By late May I had decided that the most exciting part of the migration was behind us. I was wrong! On May 27, we had three special visitors to the yard which persuaded me to post that experience and to try to return to previous sightings/photos later. In this post I’ll also include a few photos of some of our more frequent visitors on May 27.
The first of our unusual visitors was a Swainson’s thrush which graciously posed on several staging objects while giving the yard a brief tour. This is a spring migrant with beautiful vocalizations (one of which I can closely imitate!) that returns for breeding in the spring.
Shortly after the Swainson’s thrush departed I looked up and perched about six feet away (too close for a photo!) was what I believe to be a Pacific Slope flycatcher. Fortunately it made the rounds in the yard and I was able to obtain a few photos.
My third unusual visitor, and the rarest for our yard, was a Chipping sparrow. I believe I have seen only one other in the yard and it was here last year. It took a ground tour of the yard before disappearing. While this bird has a very wide-spread distribution and is quite common, it has been an extremely rare visitor to our yard and I have not personally seen others in the county. It’s the winter bane of my Texas sister’s existence who becomes overrun with these birds in the winter!
And now, a few of our more common visitors…
A Pine siskin has one of the sharpest weeks of all our yard visitors. Ever wonder if birds have tongues? This photo should answer the question!
A male Northern flicker, king of the suet feeder!
A male House finch. The yellow background in the photo is composed of blooms of our Golden Chain tree.
A małe Downy woodpecker, a very frequent visitor to our suet feeder.
A male Wilson’s warbler, the most common of our warbler visitors…
A male California quail, a year-round resident. This past winter we had as many as 17 in the yard at one time. The quail have paired but there is no sign yet of young.
A male Black-headed grosbeak. We’ve had both males and females in the yard and on one occasion we had two males in the yard at the same time.
I recorded our yard migration in some detail and if you are interested in a copy and are a local resident, let me know. I’m already mulling improvements in my documentation for next year!
