I spent another hour or two with my camera outside in subfreezing weather on the morning of January 16. The highlight of my time outside was a visit by a male Anna’s hummingbird that took a bath in the watercourse that still had substantial amounts of ice in it! There’s not much more to this story other than the photographs.

It appears the we may finally climb out of sub-freezing temperatures on Tuesday, January 16! All of the birdbaths in the yard have been frozen solid for several days now, but the moving weather in the watercourse along with a small heater have kept water running freely in our watercourse. This has been a huge attractant to the birds, but other than our usual residents we’ve had no interesting visitors. I have spent a few hours out in twenty-degree temperatures for some good photos of birds but am disappointed that there have been no really interesting visitors despite probably having one of the only sources of water within at least several hundred yards.

I’m going to digress a little here, but here is another of birding’s conundrums… how do Bushtits get their water? In my 20+ years of biting in the Pacific Northwest, I can never remember seeing a Bushtit, of which we have many, ever accessing any of our water features!

On to the photographs!

I’ll begin with our most interesting visitor, a male Varied thrush. We’ve had both a males and females visit the yard, but only sporadically and not at the same time. These birds’ habitat is generally the higher elevations of the Cascades, but when winter snow hides their food sources they migrate down to lower elevations.

I’ll next throw in a couple of birds that non-birders sometimes have difficulty telling apart… the Black-capped chickadee…

and the Chestnut-sided Chickadee.

This past fall/winter the chickadees and I have become much better friends. They are now eating out of my hand and also raiding my main peanut supply I keep on the chair tray beside me. On one of our cold days I had four visits to the end of my camera lens (!) and another visit to one of my gloved hands, with an exploratory peck at the end of my exposed thumb (apparently sometimes considered ‘the BIG peanut’!

Two birds I initially had difficulty telling apart when we first moved to the Pacific Northwest… the Song sparrow…

and the Fox sparrow, both species sometimes referred to as ‘LBBs’ (little brown birds). Part of the difficulty had to do with the fact that Song sparrows in Texas are considerably lighter in color, a characteristic that applies to some other species as well.

This Fox Sparrow is enjoying a bath on a pre-freezing but still very cold day…

This male House finch stoped by for a brief drink. We had a lot of House finches during the summer but they are now quite rare in the yard despite being considered year-round visitors.

I want to also mention this lame Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco which is a regular visitor. It doesn’t keep its stomach off the ground, has difficulty balancing when perching and skitters around the yard, but it can fly quite well. I try to see that it gets its share of the food I dole out.

Finally (remember, there is always a ‘finally’), a couple of visitors that need no introductions…

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.