Out of the Yard

I haven’t updated my blog in the last couple of weeks due to the lack of any kind of weather that facilitates photography.  I finally caught a break Monday (10/29/2012) afternoon so I headed out with my camera and managed to come home with a few photos. 

I should explain that at this time of year things are in transition, and rather than see photos of birds in the yard I’ll be transitioning to birds I can find around the greater area.  Often my best photographic opportunities in the winter are of shorebirds along the shoreline and in farm fields, and of raptors which unfortunately are mainly relegated to the power poles along the roads.  (What I wouldn’t give for a few well-placed Texas trees up here!)  And since the weather is more photographer-unfriendly, you can expect that I won’t post to my blog as often… but when I do, I may post more than once in a relatively short period of time. 

So first the yard news.  We’ve had our first pair of Varied thrush (last week) and our first occurrence of a Mourning dove on the ground.  It’s only our second sighting of a Mourning dove in our yard and the first one never came down to the ground.  We have at least one Anna’s hummingbird (a male).  Last week we had a little intra-species rivalry around the yard with two female Northern flickers and two male Downy woodpeckers.  I haven’t seen any Red crossbills or kinglets in a couple of weeks.  However we now have a very full complement of Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) in the yard.  I’m still hoping to have a Slate-colored junco before the winter is over. 

On to today’s photos.  The Bald eagle pictured at the top of this post was one of several around the March Point Road.  

The Red-tailed hawk pictured above was off the La Conner Road a short distance and the European starling below was actually at the Farmhouse.  The starlings can be difficult to photograph due to light reflect8ing off their feathers, but in this case the lighting was just right. 

I encountered this Western grebe (below) on my second trip around the March Point Road.  This bird seemed almost unaware of me and I was able to get to within about twenty feet of it while it was preening.