I’m still without a functional watercourse at the house and we’re just at the beginning of the spring migration, so I haven’t had a lot of interesting photos to post. (More about the yard situation to follow.) 

On March 29, while driving by the Cap Sante Marina on my way home, I spied a Common loon in full breeding plumage!  I immediately drove home, retrieved my camera and returned to the marina.  Fortunately the loon was still there and with a little maneuvering I managed to obtain some good photos. 

I finally lost the loon among the docks and drove around to the Seafarers Memorial to see if it might be on the other side of the marina. It wasn’t, but I found another Common loon… not in breeding plumage and “sleeping”, but still keeping a wary eye on me!  

I enjoyed watching this loon.  There was never any apparent movement above the water surface, but as I moved carefully closer the loon appeared to slowly drift further from shore, carefully maintaining the distance between us.  

Back to the yard. I haven’t had a functional watercourse since sometime before Christmas. My watercourse was losing too much water and the weather was bad (cold and rain) and I just didn’t feel like dealing with the problem under those conditions. 

In March, with somewhat improved weather I began troubleshooting the watercourse problem(s).  Having no success I summoned a commercial landscaping company to replace the liner. At this point, April 11, the watercourse fix is still a work in progress. 

However, even without the watercourse, I’m seeing signs of the start of spring migration. On April 4, I had three separate visits from one or more Orange-crowned warblers. (Since all these birds look alike, I have no way of knowing whether I was observing one bird or three different ones or some combination.)  These were my first observations of warblers in the yard this year. While I managed to photograph all three visits, none of the photos are good enough to post.

On April 6 I had another observation of an Orange-crowned warbler but failed to obtain a photo.

On April 7 I had a visit from a beautiful male Yellow-rumped (Audubon’s) warbler.  This bird briefly flew around the yard, took a quick bath in a birdbath beside me, plucked a small insect from a Japanese maple, and perched on a wire fence not three feet from me to consume the insect!  It was too close at that point for a photo but a great experience for me!  

All of these warbler visits were very brief and I’m sure that had the watercourse been functioning, their stays, and my opportunities for photographs, would have been longer. 

I had a nice photography day on April 10, 2022. I’ll try to post some of those photos fairly quickly.

For the past six weeks and possibly longer we’ve been having visits from an accipiter, which a raptor bander in Seattle with superior identification skills to my own has identified as a Cooper’s hawk. On March 22 2022, the raptor made at least two visits to the yard while I was outside with my camera and I managed photos during both visits. In this photo the accipiter is perched over our brush pile and is peering down looking for prey.

Shortly thereafter we had a visit from a flock of Bushtits, probably our smallest yard bird other than hummingbirds. This bird is a female.

On March 24 I obtained my first photos of a hummingbird in flight… a female Rufous hummingbird feeding on a flowering Red currant. This photo was taken from about 25′ away with a 500mm lens.

Finally, photos of two birds which presented me with a learning curve when I moved to the Pacific Northwest 21 years ago. A Song sparrow (much darker than the ones we had in Texas)…

And a Fox sparrow, which will probably be leaving soon for breeding grounds east of the Cascades.

On March 20, 2022, we finally had a male Rufous hummingbird that it seemed might spend the spring with us.  Our first sighting of a male had been March 11, but that male had stayed in the yard only about a minute before moving on.  This new arrival spent the day defending one of our feeders and gave me many opportunities for quality photographs.  Here are a few of the photographs, unfortunately of a lower quality than they display on my 27″ iMac Retina screen: 

The following day (March 21) I spent a couple of late-morning hours waiting for the Rufous male to return, but it had apparently moved on.  Just before 1pm I decided to go back into the house.  I had been feeding peanut pieces to sparrows and chickadees and I left a few on a rock where I had been sitting.  I glanced back at the yard just before going inside and was surprised to see a Yellow-rumped warbler fly down to the rock with the peanut pieces and then quickly fly back across the yard!  I quickly reseated myself with my camera in the hopes of getting a photograph, and although the warbler perched briefly at several places around the yard, I was not able to get the opportunity for a photograph. This was our first warbler of the season/year… we’re hoping for many more!  

My wife hosted her women’s discussion group on Friday, March 18, 2022, so it was an opportunity (if not obligation) to hit the road. I elected to head south (towards Fir Island) instead of north towards the Samish Flats, and it turned out to be a very good decision.

I first chose to tour March Point and along the way encountered a bird that I had never photographed in my 20+ years here… a Brant! Every Brant I had ever observed had been part of a flotilla located several hundred yards offshore. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that while still “in the field” I had to send a friend a phone photo for an identification. I now have several really good photos of a Brant.

Next, it was off to Fir Island. I encountered thousands of Snow geese in a field along Best Road but they were not close to the road and there was no good place to pull over. There were more on Fir Island.

I encountered a flock of White-crowned sparrows at the Jensen F&W Access…

While photographing flying Snow geese I suddenly saw a Bald eagle approaching and just had time to direct the camera as it flew by. It was a lucky shot… this may be my best ever flying eagle photograph!

After lunch at a local tavern I returned to Maupin Road to find two very large groups of Snow geese in fields on either side of the road, and there was an almost continuous transfer from one field to the other. I positioned my vehicle so that could use my door window as a rest and spent considerable time photographing flying geese.

Technical note: I had been frustrated since getting my 500mm F5.6 lens that I was unable to get the same quality photos of flying birds that I had obtained with my 200-400mm F4.0 lens. As an experiment I moved my shutter speed from 1/1000 of a second to 1/1600 of a second. I’m not sure why it would have made a difference between the two lenses, but I found I was now getting better photos.

I was sitting in the yard just after noon on Monday, March 14, 2022, watching birds when an accipiter flew into the yard. I sneaked back into the house for my camera but when I reemerged the accipiter flew. An hour or so later it returned from the same direction from which it disappeared earlier. Unfortunately, when it returned it landed on a feeder pole instead of a natural perch. Here are some of the photos I managed to take on the accipiter’s second visit.

Several years ago, on another accipiter’s visit to the yard, I managed to make a contact who bands raptors in Seattle. I sent him these photos and here is his response:

Young adult Cooper’s Hawk, just finishing molt into adult plumage, so will be 2 years old later this Spring. Looks like he/she is courting another Cooper’s Hawk in the neighborhood…..the fluffed up white undertail coverts is seen in Spring courtship.