It’s been a disappointing fall/winter for bird photography thus far. I’ve had almost no surprises from relatively rare visitors. Almost all of my photography has been of birds that have visited the yard. On the few expeditions I’ve made further afield, I’ve been disappointed with my efforts versus my results. But I have managed some nice photos of some of my visitors and here are a few.

I’ll begin with this female Anna’s hummingbird which from time to time has tried to maintain dominance over one of our feeders.

This male came for a rare bath in water that couldn’t have been over 50 degrees!

One of two Song sparrows we have around the yard this winter.

I estimate we probably have at least ten Golden-crowned sparrows in and around the yard on a good day. The photo below is of what is probably a male and is the only photo in this post not taken in our yard.

This may be a female or a first-year male.

A Red-breasted nuthatch making a relatively rare visit to our watercourse for water.

This is a male Golden-crowned kinglet, although you can’t tell it’s a male by this photo… you’ll have to trust me`!

This is a Black-capped chickadee, but we also have many Chestnut-backed chickadees that visit the yard. This year I have both species that will eat from my hand!

And finally, one of our most prolific yard visitors, a male Dark-eyed junco (Oregon race).

This is probably either a female or a first-year male.

First… computer woes!  I won’t go into the details here but I needed to make some major changes to several aspects of my computer system.  My photo processing was getting slower and slower and costing me more and more time.  I was concerned that my computer might crash and that I would lose my photos, some of which I was already unable to access. The problems were the result of a very old Apple computer, an even older version of Adobe Lightroom and a certain amount of disorganization.  

In late November I purchased an enhanced iMac computer, subscribed to Adobe’s Classic Lightroom/Photoshop software and arranged for a local computer business to migrate data and ‘straighten things out’.  I haven’t had time yet to try to access all of my older photos but I have processed several hundred new photos stored in my camera with no problems. 

In the past week or so I’ve made several visits to the Cap Sante Marina to photograph waterfowl.  Thus far I’ve photographed Common loons, Hooded mergansers and Buffleheads.  

Here are several photos resulting from my efforts… 

These are Hooded mergansers, a female in the foreground and a male in the background…

Earlier in the week I was fortunate to see a merganser emerge with a nice-sized shrimp, caught in unusually shallow waters for a shrimp.

And finally, a Common loon completing its preening routine…

On November 18, 2023, I spent a brief, but productive time in the yard. I took fewer than 50 photos but obtained what I consider some good ones.

I first photographed this Golden-crowned sparrow on the ground. We seem to have at least three in the yard almost constantly, but there could be twice that many including those in outlying areas.

Another visitor was this lame, male Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco that has been here with a LOT of other juncos. For our winter months these juncos are probably the most numerous species we have in the yard. I can identify this particular bird due to the fact that it only uses its left leg. I occasionally toss peanut kernels to birds and I always try to see that this bird gets gets its share.

We have a couple of Song sparrows around the yard and this is one of them.

This is one of the Chestnut-backed chickadees that frequents the yard. We have both species of chickadees due to our mix of both conifers (mostly firs) and deciduous trees. The chickadees are quite active and very numerous.

Other fairly frequent visitors to the yard are Golden-crowned kinglets. I’ve seen as many as four at one time but have no way of knowing how many of these visitors we have. The kinglets only visit the yard for bathing… if they are seed eaters it’s not from any seed that I provide. I’ve occasionally seen kinglets in dried Ocean Spray seed clusters but I suspect that they are searching for hidden insects rather than eating the tiny seeds. Due to a lack of any red showing in its crown, I presume this is a female.

On November 3, 2023, I want on a birding/photographic excursion to Fir Island and environs. I wasn’t hopeful for a good outing as I had toured the Samish Flats earlier in the week (11/1/2023) with only the following photos of a Red-tailed hawk to show for my efforts.

I was on Downey Road on my way to Fir Island when a bird flew in front of me and dived into the grass adjacent to a farm field beside the road. I backed up and scanned the roadside carefully and spotted this bird frozen by a tuft of grass…

This alone made my entire trip worthwhile… a Wilson’s snipe, formerly a Common snipe and apparently slated to be renamed yet again next year. (I may have lived too long when a bird species acquires three names in my lifetime!) While I do have a few other photos of this species, snipes are not easy to come by!

I was not yet to Fir Island when I encountered this pair of Bald eagles surveying a group of swans in a farm field…

Once on Fir Island I encountered this pre-adult Bald eagle which I watched dine on a dead waterfowl…

At the Hayton F&W Access I encountered five Bald eagles, two of which were these pre-adults in the top of a tree…

I returned to the Bald eagle which had been dining on the waterfowl in the farm field to find that it had moved to the top of a power pole and I took this parting photograph…

This post will cover a several-day period in mid-October.

On October 19, 2023, I photographed the two species of kinglet in the yard. The Ruby-crowned kinglet is the much rarer of the two in our yard, seen here in the Evergreen huckleberry bush adjacent to our watercourse.

The Golden-crowned kinglet is a much more frequent visitor… I’ve counted as many as three in the yard at the same time.

This, and another male Anna’s hummingbird have been hanging around the yard now for several days.

I photographed this Song sparrow on October 20, 2023.

This somewhat similar sparrow is a Fox sparrow, photographed October 22, 2023…

On October 21, 2023, I thought disaster had struck when I failed to download (or find) photos of a male Golden-crowned kinglet with its crown raised that I had taken during the day. It was a rare opportunity for photographing the bird with its crown raised. I eventually managed to find the photos…they turned out to be of much lower quality than I had anticipated.

In my efforts to find/recover the kinglet photos I discovered that I had taken over 10,000 photos with my Nikon D850 camera that I had purchased new in March of this year!

On October 22, 2023, we had a brief influx of Varied thrushes enter the yard. There were at least four in and around the yard at the same time. These were the first we had seen in a couple of weeks. These photos were all taken at some distance (30-40′) as the birds are quite wary, especially when they first arrive. (The first photo is of a female and the second photo is a male.)

And now back to kinglets. the next two photos are of the same male Golden-crowned kinglet on the same perch. Looking at the first photo you could easily assume that it is a female since there is no red/orange in the crown. But you would be wrong!

In this second photo you can see the reddish tinge that the male hides so effectively when not bathing, courting or alarmed.

And finally, a photo of a female House finch getting a drink of water. This isn’t the only species I’ve seen perform this feat! (Don’t try this yourself!)