If you’ve been following this blog you learned that I finally received my birding lens (Nikon 200-400mm f4.0) back from Nikon’s LA repair facility in early September. I was without the lens for about EIGHT weeks while Nikon procured a needed part that had failed. During that time I resolved to purchase a new lens, chiefly for backup purposes. I got on a couple of waiting lists and after a little over a month I was able to purchase a Nikon 500mm f5.6 prime lens, a difficult to obtain lens due to apparent production shortages. (I have a friend who had been waiting for over a year for one of these lenses and, as fortune intervened, I was able to procure one for him at the same time as my own!) The new lens is very sharp and it will probably become my primary lens and I’ll use the old (repaired) lens as backup… but I’m still working through that strategy.

In the meantime I decided to change the way I documented bird sightings in the yard. After spending 12+ years of trying to document weekly sightings I’ve decided to discontinue that practice and just document special birds on an annual fall and spring migration list. This is stiil definitely a work in progress and I expect it to evolve more this fall. In the meantime the list will allow me to bring attention to interesting birds that I’ve photographed in the yard in the past month.

As most of you are probably aware, we had heavy smoke from wildfires in the area for many days and I wondered if that might have affected migration. We had what I considered a very muted migration this fall. There was also a very large die-off of migrants in New Mexico that was apparently due to early snow, but that shouldn’t have affected our southward migration here.

Getting to sightings, we had a single Cedar waxwing show up in the yard on September 5, but I didn’t get a photo. On several previous days a waxwing showed up by itself, a somewhat strange occurrence for such a gregarious bird.

On September 7 we had a single Varied thrush show up in the yard, our earliest Fall appearance by far. I managed a distant photo… the species hasn’t returned.

On September 8 a juvenile Hutton’s vireo (featured in my prior blog post) made it’s appearance and we also had a Black-headed grosbeak, a species that had been gone from the yard for over a month.

On September 11 the Hutton’s vireo again made its appearance as did our first Fox sparrow for the winter season.

September 14 was a banner day, with a Hermit or Swainson’s thrush, two visits from the Black-headed grosbeak, three visits from Orange-crowned warblers and a Pacific Slope flycatcher.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to obtain a photo of the thrush, which I assumed was a Hermit thrush due to the time of year and the fact that it had a reddish tail which contrasted with its back. However, we also had thrushes on the 18th and the 20th and I decided that we might have had one of each. (More about this in my next post.)

Temporarily leaving the migratory category, I took these photos of a White-crowned sparrow and a male Northern flicker in the yard on the same day.

Straying from the yard, on September 15 I drove by the Cap Sante Marina and saw two yellowlegs in the northwest corner. I returned with my camera and obtained photos. I’m going out on a limb here, but I think these are Greater yellowlegs as opposed to Lesser yellowlegs.

On September 18 I took my new lens on its maiden outing to Fir Island where I saw three Turkey vultures, a female Wood duck, several Yellow-rumped warblers, a Townsend’s warbler and a Common yellowthroat, but I obtained no photos worth posting.

We’ve had other significant visitors that I’ll cover in my next blog post.

I had been scheduled to teach a birding photography class at the Anacortes Senior College in May, 2019. That course, as so much else that has changed in our lives since last year, was cancelled due to the COVID virus. I’m going to take the opportunity this site provides to illuminate an important asset for birding photography in your yard and illustrate my point with photos of a juvenile Hutton’s vireo I took on September 11, 2020.

Perhaps the most important attraction feature you can provide in your yard is water. There are many species of birds that can’t be attracted by any food you provide. These are generally insect-eaters such as warblers, vireos, flycatchers and the like. However, almost all birds are attracted to water. Moving water is best… the moving water and sound helps attract birds’ attention. But a simple stationary bird bath will also attract birds.

I prefer that my photos not appear to have been taken without any man-made object in the photo. So when you view my photos, if you were’t privy to the environment I’ve created in our yard, you could imaginatively assume that the photo was taken in a purely natural setting. I work hard creating such an environment and chief among my tools are what I refer to as “staging objects”, sticks and rocks strategically placed around feeders and water sources not only to attract birds, but also to facilitate photographing them.

And just as importantly, these staging objects give you, as a photographer or observer, more opportunities (in both time and poses) to photograph or view a bird in a number of different settings. If you are a photographer, I believe it is important that you vary staging perches from time to time so that all your photos don’t appear to have been taken at the same exact location. To facilitate this you should use objects that are three dimensional… rotating the staging object changes its orientation and therefore the areas on the object where birds will land. I keep an inventory of staging sticks so that I can rotate them into a setting and keep the photographs fresh.

When I have the time I like to eliminate the visual aspect of a saw cut on the end of a staging stick, which indicates what might not be a natural setting. The best technique I have found for this is to burn the end of the stick using a torch, then rub the burned end in dirt to eliminate the burned area!

With regard to rocks, you may have a couple of large prominent rocks and it may be tempting to upend a pointed end. By placing such a rock with a FLAT side at the top you can cap it with another rock and then rotate the top rock to keep things fresh. While rotating staging objects may not be important for an observer, it will eventually become important for a photographer! It’s not unusual for me to take over 300 photos of yard birds in a single day, so rotating perches is important!

To get on with this lesson, as I previously noted I’m posting photos of a single juvenile Hutton’s vireo (an unusual visitor) on a single visit to the yard. I took a total of 41 photos of this bird on five different perches. I retained a total of 15 photos. Why did I retain so many? Most were quality photos (this bird is apparently a juvenile and looks a little rough) and depicted the bird in multiple poses… oriented to the left, right, looking over its shoulder, leaning off a perch, etc. Here are some of the photos…

You can probably pick a favorite, as can I, but I just couldn’t delete good photos of a relatively rare bird!

So I hope I have made my point concerning the value of staging objects in your yard.

PS: Donations of staging sticks are gratefully accepted. One of my best staging sticks was donated by an architect friend who understood the value of three dimensional objects!

Thursday, September 3, 2020, was a very welcome day. In the early afternoon I received my Nikon 200-500mm f4.0 lens back from the Nikon repair facility in LA… about EIGHT WEEKS to the day that they received it! I was worried that I wouldn’t receive it in time for the fall migration that has just started here. (I had our first migrant, an Orange-crowned warbler, visit on August 31 and missed getting photos of it.) I didn’t get a chance to use the lens due to other activities in progress, but I did get out the next day.

On September 4, 2020, I resolved to scout birding opportunities towards Fir Island. March Point turned up nothing so I continued to the Pleasant Ridge area. There I photographed a dragonfly for entomologist friends. (If you were short on your natural science education it’s perfectly acceptable, as is my practice, to use the term “buggologist”.)

This next dragonfly was in flight and I managed about 20 photos… not an easy task!

This was not a good birding day. I was out during the middle of the day, the sun was shining brightly and it was quite warm (for the PacNW). As the day progressed I found myself having to use my car’s air conditioning.

My first birding sighting was a pair of Red-breasted nuthatches stashing food in the bark of a large cedar tree. These photos, once I arrived back home and processed them, left me assured that my lens had been correctly repaired.

I was surprised to see three Turkey vultures (accompanied by a raptor) soaring over Wylie Road on Fir Island… I’d thought ours around Cap Sante had been gone (migrated south) several weeks ago. On Channel Drive I was surprised to encounter the following bird (and at least two companions) wandering around in someone’s gravel “yard”. My first thought was that it was some exotic bird that someone was keeping, but on further reflection I decided that it was probably a juvenile Ring-necked pheasant… although you shouldn’t consider this a positive identification. There were farm fields directly across the street so that could have been suitable habitat for the birds.

I have to include this wildlife in my blog… seemingly friendly but aloof and patrolling the neighborhood.

Back in our yard again late in the afternoon, I photographed these Chestnut-backed chickadees which gave me something of a feeling of return to normalcy. I take these birds for granted, but we occasionally get birders from the central and eastern US who consider this a ‘target bird’… check the birds’ range map and you’ll see why!

The predominant birds in our yard now are Pine siskins and American goldfinches. We’re still seeing lots of recently fledged young of both species. The juvenile birds’ best skills at this point in their development isn’t flying… it’s following parents around and begging food.

So you might think this might be the end to my day… but it wasn’t. In early evening, just before retiring to the west patio for dinner, I took a quick look out the kitchen window. There was a small bird enjoying an energetic bath in a very small saucer of water we use as a water feature. At first I dismissed the bird as just another American goldfinch, but it was too energetic and goldfinches usually don’t use this particular water feature. I used my binoculars to examine the bird more closely and saw that it was a flycatcher. This was our second observed fall migrant! I was lucky to get a photo after implementing what has become a normal routine… racing for my camera, sneaking out the front door and photographing the bird from some 30+ feet away. (A friend with better skills than my own later identified it as a Pacific Slope flycatcher, another find for you birders located to the east oof us!

So… since my birding lens is now back in my hands, photographic activities here should be returning to some degree of normalcy. I look forward to spending more time in the yard and documenting some of our fall migration activity.

As of this post (August 25, 2020) I’m still waiting for Nikon to repair my primary birding lens that they’ve had since July 10, 2020. Today I received an email that the part they need for repairs is due in on August 27 and that they will expedite the repair. I will have been without the lens for at least SEVEN weeks and therefore haven’t been able to generate many photos that meet my standards.

However, I have taken several photos that I’ll share. This raccoon, a regular visitor to the yard, paid us a visit on July 31, 2020.

This is a Cedar waxwing that has apparently been an almost daily visitor since early August. Waxwings are generally quite gregarious, but this one shows up only by itself. It may be one of an unmated or mated pair. I’m really disappointed that I haven’t had my good lens as I could have gotten much better photos.

More raccoon photos, probably of the same raccoon, taken August 19, 2020.

And finally, one of two Townsend’s chipmunks that are regular visitors to the yard, this one photographed on August 23, 2020.

I’m hoping that by sometime in early September I’ll be back photographing birds. I hope you’ll return for a visit!

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted to my blog in a while. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, as I mentioned in my last post, I broke my right ankle in mid-June and was quite immobile for the month that I had to wear a boot. I couldn’t drive with the boot (on my right foot) so I was mainly confined to our house during that time.

Second, in early July my Nikon 200-400mm f4.0 lens began making unusual noises when focusing. I want through this about five years ago and the problem was the focusing motor(s) inside the lens. The lens needed to be sent to Nikon for repair, and like the last time this happened, the needed parts apparently were’t on hand. So as of early August my lens sits languishing on some technician’s desk in LA waiting for parts. In some ways the timing was good.

Which brings me to the third reason… except for juveniles being fed in the yard, things are relatively uninteresting from the viewpoint of variety of species. For the most part it’s the same old birds day after day… with a few exceptions, which I’ll detail below.

And there’s even a fourth reason for not posting… I engaged a friend with more technical experience than I to try to fix a distribution problem with my blog. Some of you signed up to be notified by email when I post a new blog, but something happened to that feature when I requested assistance from the site host. So as of this writing you apparently can’t sign up for notifications and if you signed up previously you probably aren’t getting them.

So I’m eagerly awaiting the repair of my primary birding lens, trying to make do with a Nikon 18-200mm lens… kind like bear hunting with a BB gun! This crisis has motivated me to purchase a backup lens, which if it becomes available and I can purchase one may become my primary birding lens.

Enough of my woes! The raccoon pictured at the top of this post was a visitor on July 31, 2020. I saw it skulking around the edge of the yard and was able to get prepared in the event it decided to come for water. Bingo! It was just about the perfect distance for the 200mm zoom.

In my last post featuring seasonal juveniles I should have included one other juvenile bird… a Brown-headed cowbird. Fortunately we haven’t had many in the yard this year, but on August 2, 2020 I observed an adult Spotted towhee feeding a cowbird chick. This photo of a cowbird chick was taken May 29.

Other news this month:

We have a male Hairy woodpecker visiting the yard, definitely a rarity considering observations here at the house over the past few years. We had one last fall/winter but it disappeared during breeding season. Now it (or a relative) is back!

We have at least two movies of California quail visiting the yard. One covey has about 8-10 ‘teenagers’, the males of which are just beginning to show their facial markings. The other covey, much younger chicks, numbers about 10-12.

During July we had two widely-spaced visits by male Audubon Yellow-rumped warblers.

I have been anxiously anticipating visits by Cedar waxwings this summer. Finally, on July 29,30 and 31 (one visit per day) we had one show up at the watercourse. Sorry… no lens, no photos!