I spent some time birding in the yard on December 12, 2121. The light was fairly good for photography. All my photos are underexposed but Adobe Lightroom works wonders with lightening.

I have no narrative… for the most part it was just photographing regular visitors although I did obtain some good photos. I did have a Bewick’s wren access our suet feeder… something I hadn’t observed since last spring when a wren seemed addicted to the suet.

On December 8, 2021, I opted for a little morning birding excursion outside the yard. I drove to the Cap Sante Marina where I found a Common loon preening. Having observed this species on prior occasions I readied my camera for what I knew would come at the end of its preening activity. I wasn’t disappointed. As it began to extend its wings I held down my shutter button, taking more than six frames per second and capturing the bird rising from the water and fully extending its wings. In a few seconds I recorded 20+ images… these are a few of the most interesting… 

After ‘stretching’ the bird began hunting. I tried to follow it as it submerged in the hopes it might resurface with a fish, but it appeared in the far side of a dock. It had to swim only 100 feet to its new location, but I would have to walk a couple of hundred yards to its new location with no assurance it would still be there when I arrived, so my pursuit ended. 

The avian traffic in the yard has been extremely boring lately. We have California quail, chickadees, House finches and several species of sparrows (overwhelmingly Dark-eyed Oregon juncos) and a few other common species but not a lot else. I pass my time in the yard repeatedly photographing some of our regular visitors. 

On December 10, a Ruby-crowned kinglet spent considerable time in the salvia around the watercourse but, frustratingly, I was unable to obtain photos of the bird.  I did photograph this male Anna’s hummingbird… 

and this male Downy woodpecker. 

And finally, news from San Francisco that my sister, who lives in a crowded neighborhood with no significant bird habitat nearby, had a pair of Yellow-rumped warblers come to a small saucer with hulled sunflower seeds earlier this week!  

When returning home from Bellingham last week I drove through the Samish Flats and saw a Short-eared owl sitting on a post immediately beside the road. It was an overcast day, late in the afternoon and I didn’t have my camera with me. Since that sighting I had been thinking of getting back to the area in the hopes of getting a similar photo opportunity. So on the morning of December 1, 2021, I headed over towards Bow. As is so often the case I didn’t find any of the birds I had hoped to see but did find other birds to photograph.

The first notable birds I encountered were a group of at least 30 American coots. I don’t see many coots in the greater area and I’ve never known the birds to be particularly gregarious, especially in this area, so to see so many crowded together in a flooded farm field seems unusual.

This Red-winged blackbird was part of a very large flock of males (which usually separate from the females in the non-breeding season) which were predating a flooded corn field.

During my travels around the area I saw at least four Rough-legged hawks. As is almost always the case, all were perched on power lines depriving me of the opportunity to get a more natural photo. (I just noticed before posting this that the bird is apparently banded on its right leg.)

Perched very close to one of the hawks was this female American kestrel.

Moving on to a more restricted environment, I found this Lincoln’s sparrow peeking out from a tangle of bushes. Unfortunately I was unable to coax it out for a better photograph.

And finally, I managed to find a pair of Ruby-crowned kinglets in another set of bushes. These birds can be very challenging to photograph as they are in almost constant motion, but I managed several good photos. I never could see any evidence of a ruby crown on either bird, so both may have been females. However, I have long given up trying to assign sex to kinglets without ruby crowns… the males are too adept at keeping their crowns hidden.

We had a storm blow through on the night of November 8-9 with heavy rains and high winds. When I woke for the second time and checked the radar I realized that a front had just blown through and there was no rain immediately behind it, so I could go for a walk in Washington Park without risking getting wet. I quickly dressed, drove to the park and set out on my morning walk. I was so taken with my weather radar acumen for having missed the rain that I failed to consider the wind. By the time I realized that I normally wouldn’t have entered the woods under such circumstances, I was almost halfway through my walk! The loud cracking of a tree limb in the woods near me reminded me of why I wouldn’t usually walk under such conditions.

Upon arriving back home I peered out the kitchen window and spied both a Yellow-rumped warbler and a Golden-crowned kinglet in the front yard at the same time (neither of which I was able to photograph) so despite less than ideal conditions I set up in the yard for a little photography. I ended up taking 46 photos and discarded about half of those. Here are a few of the ones I kept…

I just never get tired of photographing ‘our’ leucistic Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco, with us for the second winter!

And the star of the day, actually one of the first birds I photographed, was this male Ruby-crowned kinglet, pausing while in the middle of a bath! It’s unusual to be able to see the ruby crown in the field, but I sometimes have the opportunity to observe and photograph it when the bird is bathing. This photo shows just how bright the crown can be!

On Friday, November 5th, 2021, I went out in the yard for a little birding after a morning of rain and recovery from my Moderna booster that I had gotten two days before. There were a lot of birds in the yard but mostly chickadees (Chestnut-backed and Black-capped), House sparrows and our most numerous winter species, Dark-eyed (Oregon) juncos. Our leucistic Dark-eyed junco did visit the yard later. 

I spied (and managed to photograph) a Yellow-rumped warbler flitting around the yard but it never made it down to the watercourse. 

I noticed what seemed like a first year White-crowned sparrow in the yard to the side of me, but it seemed to have unusually bold facial markings. I wanted to photograph it but it was moving away from me and was on the far side of a wire fence we use to protect a Japanese maple from the neighborhood’s deer population. I watched it for a minute or so but it moved off out of sight. 

About fifteen minutes later the same bird popped out from an evergreen huckleberry beside the watercourse and I quickly focused on it for a photo. As I did so I could clearly see the yellow lores which identified it as a White-throated sparrow, a VERY rare visitor to the yard. I managed a quick photo before the bird disappeared behind the huckleberry bush. 

About two years ago we had a White-throated sparrow living under a bush about a block up the street (V Avenue) from us and I took photos of that bird on numerous occasions.  I believe that it was that bird that came to the yard once or twice, but as far as I can remember those were our only visits until this day. 

This was a SEVEN sparrow species day. Unfortunately our Fox sparrow, which usually frequents our yard, didn’t show while I was observing. (The Fox sparrow was here the following day but the White-throated and White-crowned sparrows were not.)

Here are some of the photos of the sparrows I took…

Another bird of note, a young Brown creeper which visited three different  bird baths.