October 11, 2023, was another great day for birding photography!

I began the day by photographing American robins eating madrone berries. For the past couple of weeks I had been attempting to photograph robins in the madrones. The madrone berries have been ripe and are very abundant, but it seemed all the birds in the trees were at least 30 feet off the ground making photography difficult. Yesterday I found some of the birds had descended to lower levels of the trees making photography much more attractive. So there are a few of the photos I was able to take…

I took a short break when the birds seemed to take a break and drove by the Cap Sante Marina on my way to get gas. I seldom forgo the opportunity to check the marina for waterfowl and did so on this day, but there was no discernible bird activity. A short time later, on the way back from my errand, I again drove by the marina and found that matters had changed significantly.

The first thing I noticed was a Common loon had arrived in the basin. It was not active and seemed content to just slowly drift around the yacht basin, but it was not as close as I would have liked.

As I photographed the loon I noticed a Great Blue heron successfully fishing along the shore…

As I stood watching the heron a female Belted kingfisher arrived, landing very near me. This may have been the closest I have ever been to one!

I returned to the neighborhood and photographed more robins, then later in the afternoon returned to the yard. While I was there this Ruby-crowned kinglet flew into a bush very near me and gave me a fleeting opportunity for a photo.

Finally, just as I was getting ready to call it a day, a Pacific wren emerged from the undergrowth and skittered around the yard. This is a very rare visitor to the yard and one very difficult to photograph due to its activity level.

Whew! It had been a long day… I had over 300 photos to process!

October 10, 2023, another good day for photography and another productive day in the yard!

I was rather surprised to see this (presumably Audubon female) Yellow-rumped warbler enter the yard shortly after I went outside. I think it may have been about the third day in a row that I’ve had one visit. This time the warbler used many of my staging objects which gave me excellent opportunities for the 36 photos of the bird i was able to take.

As I sat surveying the yard this Fox Sparrow popped out from under the huckleberry bush located adjacent to the watercourse. This is our first Fox sparrow of the season and completes the list of sparrows we expect to see over the winter. (See list below.)

Dark-eyed Oregon juncos have begun filling the yard and will soon become our most numerous winter bird. The first bird pictured is probably a female and the second bird is a male.

In my prior post I mentioned that I had seen, but been unable to photograph, a female Varied thrush that had visited the yard several times in the past week or so. On 10/9 I was more successful! This one is perched directly above our watercourse.

And now for the list of (eight) sparrow species that are either here now or have visited this fall:

• Spotted towhee
• Dark-eyed Oregon junco
• House sparrow
• White-crowned sparrow
• Golden-crowned sparrow
• Song sparrow
• Fox Sparrow
• White-throated sparrow

All except the White-throated sparrow are in current residence. If you are interested in spending some time in our yard watching birds let me know.

Finally… remember there’s always a “finally”… here’s my companion (a native Townsend’s chipmunk) that supplies photographic opportunities when the birding gets slow. I thought we had parted ways for hibernation about a week ago but apparently not quite yet. Since we’re such close friends, he/she works cheaply… the payment for sitting fees are peanuts! (Pun intended!)

Yet another afternoon of yard birding. I began my day photographing this Ruby-crowned kinglet which came to our watercourse.

We have an almost continuous presence of kinglets in the yard, but most are Golden-crowned kinglets.

These photos offer a good opportunity for contrast between the two species. It’s very difficult differentiating the males from the females i both species as the males are so adept at concealing their red crests. My attention was drawn to this male when it became upset with another bird in the watercourse and raised its red crest. I try to label my photographs as to sex, but I’ve decided if I can’t see any red that I can’t assume the bird is a female, so I just leave off the sex label. If you look closely at the (RCKI) kinglet above you can see that it is a male.

We have two Song sparrows that frequent the yard but this season we are still waiting for our first Fox sparrow, which closely resembles the Song sparrow.

This is a male House finch, a species that is usually here almost constantly but disappeared for a few brief periods in the last couple of months. The color intensity on the males varies considerably… this one is relatively pale.

We had 2-3 American goldfinches visit the yard on this day, a relatively rare bird in our yard during the winter season. Judging by the color of the wing bars, I’m guessing that this is a first year female.

I’ve counted as many as three Golden-crowned sparrows in the yard so far this season but I suspect there are probably several more on the fringes.

We had our first Varied thrush in our yard on or about October 3, but try as I might I was unable to obtain a photo that day despite 3-4 visits. It took me almost a week to obtain this photo of a male taken on October 8, 2023. We now have both a male and female visiting the yard several times a day, but I have been unable to photograph the female. These birds can be extremely wary when they first arrive but things usually settle down after they’ve been here awhile.

On October 2, 2023, I had a rather interesting yard birding day. It was a great day for photography and I managed to obtain very good photos of some of our sparrow species.

A White-crowned sparrow, one of two adults in the yard…

A Golden-crowned sparrow. I’ve counted three in the yard at one time but think there are probably more with possibly more to arrive. A I recall, last year we set a record with nine.

A Golden-crowned sparrow feasting on huckleberries from the huckleberry bush near our watercourse…

We have a Spotted towhee with a deformed (crossed) beak that’s been hanging around the yard for several months now. I believe that this is a bird that was fledged this year. I’ve followed its progress as its plumage changed over time. I was initially concerned that the bird would perish due to not being able to obtain/process food, but it seems to be doing just fine.

And to round out the sparrows, a leucistic male Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco. (Note the white collar on the bird.) This may be a bird I’ve photographed in a past year.

W also have a pair of Song sparrows. The White-throated sparrow that was in the yard for a couple of weeks seems to have moved on and we’re still waiting for our first Fox sparrow.

We’re having a trickle of kinglets visit the yard, most of which are Golden-crowned kinglets. You’ll have to trust me when I say that this one is a male!!

On this day we were also visited by a Ruby-crowned kinglet, an apparent female.

On the morning of 9/17/2023 I glanced out the window while performing kitchen chores and saw a bird I didn’t recognize hanging from the bottom of our inverted suet feeder. I was looking east and the bird was backlit but it appeared to have a substantial amount of white plumage. I reached for my binoculars to get a better view and realized it was a White-breasted nuthatch, a bird I had never seen in Skagit County in my 22 years of living here!  (The bird can be found in eastern Washington, east of the Cascades.) I grabbed my camera and managed to obtain only a few photos before the bird flew high into a tree to the east of us. I spent a good portion of the morning hoping the bird would return so I could get better photos of it, but it was not to be. 

Not too much later I saw a sparrow in the yard that seemed different than the 12-15 House sparrows flying around the yard. I turned my attention to it and realized it was a White-throated sparrow, a real rarity in the yard until the one we had intermittently last winter. It never approached close enough for me to get a good photo but made several appearances during the morning. 

Not too much later I photographed a Golden-crowned sparrow at a nearby water feature, our first fall arrival of the species. That evening, while processing photos, I realized there had been at least two in the yard. (Note the differences in the photos,)  

That afternoon, in a brief session in the yard I observed visits from a a Golden-crowned kinglet, which I photographed, and a Ruby-crowned kinglet which I was unable to photograph because it was driven from the watercourse by a squirrel.

I was also able to obtain photos of a (female) Bushtit. Bushtits are fairly common, prolific visitors during the non-breeding season but difficult to photograph due to their size and activity level. 

All things considered, it had been a very exciting and productive fall birding day. I had seen and photographed SEVEN sparrow species: 

• Spotted towhee
• Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco
• House sparrow
• Song sparrow (first fall arrival 8/13/2023)
• White-crowned sparrow
• White-throated sparrow (first fall arrival)
• Golden-crowned sparrow (first fall arrival)