More Malheur NWR Blackbirds

I just posted blackbirds a few days ago, but I recently processed additional images from my trip through the Malheur NWR in Oregon which are more interesting. All three of these blackbirds are male and all three are either displaying for a female or defending their nesting territory from other males. 

First we have the more familiar (at least to Skagit County residents) male Red-winged blackbird. 

Next up, the Brewer's blackbird.  This is a usually unobtrusive bird that can often be found in the parking lots of large department stores scrounging food dropped on the pavement. 

 Finally, the colorful Yellow-headed blackbird that Washington residents usually only see east of the Cascades, although I did photograph one just off Samish Island in Skagit County several years ago. 

More Birds from the Malheur NWR

One of the mornings I was at the Malheur NWR I was slowly patrolling the road near the 'hotel' where I stayed and I came upon this Wilson's snipe sitting on the top of a fencepost... one of the last places I would have expected to encounter one.  I took quite a few photos from my car and after a while it began vocalizing.  I took even more photos.  (This was like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel!) 


I finally decided that any additional photos would be simply duplicates so I slowly eased down the road.  I had gone a couple of hundred yards when I thought better of it, reasoning how often do you find a Wilson's snipe sitting on a fence post in almost perfect light?  So I turned around and went back, this time moving even closer to the bird.  I took another set of photos much like the first, only larger in the viewfinder!  I finally moved on a second time, leaving the bird perched where I found it. 

 

Blackbirds in the Malheur NWR

These are blackbirds I encountered, again in the Malheur NWR in Oregon.  The first bird is a male Red-winged blackbird, a bird common to the entire state and indeed most, if not all, of the country.  The patch on the wing is occasionally difficult to see and doesn't always look red.  However if you ever see the bird fly directly towards you in the sunlight there's no mistaking the red patches on the wing. 

The females are much more drab and look nothing like the males.  When not in breeding season the males and females often are in segregated flocks. 

This is the Yellow-winged blackbird, a bird that is distributed throughout the western U.S. but fairly rare west of the Cascades.  (I've seen one in Skagit county in the 10+ years I've been birding here.) 

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

Following up on my prior post on Yellow-rumped warblers at the Malheur NWR in Oregon, I encountered Ruby-crowned kinglets at the same location and feeding among the warblers. 

These birds are often quite friendly around humans... I've had them almost land on me on several occasions.  The birds are named for a ruby crown that they generally display only when upset.  I estimate that I see the ruby crown in only about one out of 10-15 sightings, and it's even more difficult to get a photo of the crown.  I captured the ruby crown in the last photo of this post. 

Yellow-rumped Warblers

This past April I didn't update my blog for several weeks, and it was because I took a 3-week, 5,000+  mile driving trip down through the American Southwest.  I'll try to start a series of birds I photographed on that trip.

The following images were taken at the Malheur NWR in south-central Oregon.  I was disappointed in the habitat but managed to get a lot of photos of warblers... more than I thought I would ever get in my lifetime.  Warblers are notoriously difficult to photograph but I found a small migrant trap where there was a very abundant supply, and in a couple hours of photographing I managed to take over a hundred photos.  I've probably retained about half that many, but most are quality photos.

The overwhelming majority of warblers were Yellow-rumped warblers and most seemed to be male.  They seemed to be about evenly divided between the Audubon race and the Myrtle race.  For posting purposes I pretty much just picked some representative photos from the bunch, but there are a lot more where these came from!

First up, a photo of the Myrtle race.  I introduce this first so that you can see where the species got its name.  Both sexes and both races of this species share this yellow patch on the rump, although it may not be immediately evident in all postures.  

 

This next bird is also a Myrtle race as evidenced  by the white throat. 

Finally, an Audubon's race as evidenced by the yellow throat.

 Next up... Ruby-crowned kinglets which I photographed at the same place and time. 

Mergansers

Here's one of my favorite bird identification stories...

Several years ago, at one of the local marinas, I photographed a female merganser.   I wasn't sure whether the bird was a Red-breasted merganser or a Common merganser so I asked the help of friends, all of whom were much better birders than I.  By the end of the fray I had four on one side and four on the other, but obtained a definitive identification from a friend who is a (somewhat) local wildlife biologist.  I don't even remember the outcome at this point, but it's made me shy of identifying mergansers ever since!

Without further tales, I give you what I hope are photos of Hooded mergansers I took at the same marina back in April of this year.  (If anyone begs to differ please let me know!)

This is a male who is not quite into breeding plumage...

 

Here we have, and I'm guessing now, a female Hooded merganser with a first year juvenile...

  

Finally, we have a first year juvenile... 

 If you want more detail I believe that you can click on the photos to enlarge them.  Let's hear it for BLOGSPOT which furnishes this site at no cost to me and with no offensive advertising!  I've got about two years worth of posts online if you care to meander back that far!   I keep thinking that at some point I will exceed some sort of capacity limit or their patience but it hasn't happened yet!

Birds of Eastern Washington

I could probably post three photos a week for the rest of my life from my inventory of yard photos, but they are going to have to be put on hold for awhile. On Wednesday I took my good camera back to Seattle for shipment to Nikon for a minor, but irritating, problem. So I’ll be without my camera for a minimum of about four weeks while it is being evaluated/repaired… hopefully under warranty. The timing is not good… Thursday in the yard we saw a Yellow-rumped warbler, a Wilson’s warbler and a male Red Crossbill. On Friday we had a very rare Mourning dove in the yard most of the day, and just before dark I could hear it calling. It reminded me of Texas, although I’m not ready to acquire Mourning doves at a cost of 100-degree days and a severe lack of rain. On Saturday the Rufous hummingbirds were visiting our yellow irises which would have made for good photos.

However I’m not without photographs. Earlier this week we took a brief trip over to Eastern Washington and birded the Winthrop area. So the birds I’ll display in this post will be from that trip.

This small bird, which I originally thought was a thrush, turned out to be a flycatcher (I think).  It was located near water in deciduous forest and brush.  My wife managed to attract it by mimicking a Swainson's thrush call.  I'm guessing the bird is a member of the genus Empidonax and therefore unidentifiable.  (I have more photos if anyone wants to make a guess as to species.) 

I discovered a short trail to the pond with a nice log on which I could comfortably sit and spent a considerable amount of time waiting for an unusual bird to come along.  It was a perfect setting... I had light, I was looking down a row of reeds with a partially submerged log adjacent to the reeds.  However all that landed there were Red-winged blackbirds. 

On one of our drives through the Methow Valley of Eastern Washington we encountered this Killdeer which, instead of moving away from our car, actually approached it.  I took a quick picture because I was distracted by other birds and it wasn't until I got back home and processed the photo that I realized that the Killdeer was a juvenile.  

We saw several Western kingbirds (and also Eastern kingbirds along the roads... 

At Beaver Pond I managed to find at least two Cedar waxwings that were fly-catching.  Judging by their behavior I suspect that they had a nest nearby.  In this photo you can see all the distinguishing markings of this remarkable bird... the crest, the black mask, the reddish-orange on the tips of its wings and the yellow band along its tail.  Every one of these birds I've ever seen look like they were sculpted in porcelain... they are perfect.  

 

Finally, on our way home we happened on a small mixed flock of birds all of which were very active.  I finally isolated one or more Townsend's warblers from the flock and managed to photograph them.  I feel very fortunate to have been able to obtain photographs of the bird due to its relative rarity and activeness.  In a good year we sometimes sight one pass through the yard in the fall. 

Another afternoon of sitting in the yard watching birds and making some new discoveries.  I hadn't originally planned to spend time photographing birds in the yard in the afternoon, but the baby California quail which just arrived this week sparked my interest and I decided to try to obtain some photos.  The parents have at least a dozen but with their activity and strategy to stay near or under cover they are impossible to count.  Suffice it to say that by the time they are half grown the parents will be lucky to have a third of them left.  

While I was maneuvering for a better photographic angle I looked up in the Golden Chain tree and saw a Cedar Waxwing in full sunlight less that 20' in front of me.  I hadn't seen the waxwing fly into the yard and this partially makes up for the visit I had from one a couple of weeks ago that left without me being able to get a decent photo.  I'm still not entirely happy with this photo but at least things are moving in the right direction!  

 

We have been plagued by juvenile European starlings for about the past week.  They generally come into the yard as a group of about 12-15 and stay until I run them out.  They were in the yard at the same time as the young quail, and I was amazed that the adult quail were mostly content to allow the starlings among their chicks.  (I did see one instance of a starling getting the beak from the female quail!) 

My attention was now directed at the starlings since I had an opportunity to obtain photos of the juveniles.  I kept noticing one starling that was substantially smaller than all the other starlings, and after a little study I came to the conclusion that mixed in with the starlings was a juvenile Brown-headed cowbird!  Poetic justice... I hope the cowbird pushed a few starling eggs out of the nest before they hatched!  This cowbird looks so innocent in this photo, but it will eventually be bad news for other birds.

So while all this was going on some goldfinches were encouraged to fly down to the water feature.  I was idly watching the goldfinches when I realized that one had no markings on its wings.  An orange-crowned warbler, seeing all the other activity around the water, had decided to fly down and investigate! 

I took about three photos of the warbler and upon close examination, I believe I can see the faint color of the orange crown in all three photographs.  This isn't the best of the photographs, but if you enlarge it by double clicking on it I think you will be able to see the faint orange streak at the rear of the bird's crown.  I'm not sure I've ever been successful in seeing the Orange-crowned warbler's crown before.  You have to either be very lucky, very observant, or view it the way John James Audubon viewed them.  (OK... no more sick jokes!) 

 

Near, but Not Quite In the Yard...

Not quite yard birds,but not far from it.  Here's a male House finch on the top of a Torch flower...

A female Rufous hummingbird... 

A male Rufous hummingbird... 

 

And finally, this Black-capped chickadee asks how you look after a bath?  

Tis the Season...

The unfortunate news here is that last week, on one occasion, I counted thirteen juvenile European starlings in the yard at one time... and I'm fairly certain that due to their activity what I obtained was a substantial under-count!  Even though I utilize inverted suet feeders that discriminate against non-clinging birds, the starlings have learned to briefly hang upside down while stabbing at the suet.  Some of the suet falls from the cake and the starlings then land on the ground and eat the suet that has fallen.  I would leave the feeders empty but we have Downy woodpeckers, Northern flickers, Red-breasted nuthatches and chickadees that are regular feeders.  The birds, young and old, are very tenacious and refuse to be shooed away with hand-waving and thrown rocks. 

The best that can be said about the situation is that it afforded me the opportunity for photographs of the species...

This was a relatively rare visitor to the yard even though it's not an uncommon bird in these parts.  This Bushtit made several trips to the water features to bathe...

 

I was attempting to photograph hummingbirds adjacent to the feeder when these two female Rufous hummingbirds got into a little squabble next to the feeder.  It would have been an excellent photo but I didn't have enough light to really make things good.  

And finally, a female Rufous hummingbird in better light.   We have these native irises in the yard and they must not produce nectar because they generally aren't visited by either bees or hummingbirds.  However every once in awhile a hummingbird gets curious, and I barely managed to catch this hummingbird investigating an iris before it quickly moved on. 

Within about a week I'll be playing catch-up on my photo processing.  I've been having problems with my camera and it's still in warranty, so it'll get sent to Nikon for repairs by the end of next week.  That will be the end of my current yard photos for several weeks while the camera is checked out and repaired.  While that is being done I can hopefully be motivated to address the backlog of photos I have on my computer and I'll again begin posting photos from trips.