Easing into Fall... More Yard Birds

I had another good day in the yard on Saturday despite the cloud cover.  I'm almost, but not quite, tiring of taking photos of woodpeckers.  This is a male Downy woodpecker on the side of a Madrona tree, but we also have Hairy woodpeckers and Northern flickers visiting the yard many times on a daily basis. 

The American robins are returning on a daily basis and there is no other bird that can enjoy a bath as much as a robin.  After they are finished I usually have to refill the bird bath!  I photographed this bird against the wonderful new root I acquired from a friend. 

The crown jewel of the day was a Golden-crowned kinglet that made a very brief visit to the watercourse.  I don't think it ever drank any water but hopped from rock to rock on the watercourse.  These birds are very difficult to photograph due to their constant motion, and since they are primarily insect eaters they can't be attracted to a feeder.  The water is a universal attractant, but you can never count on a kinglet even being here on a weekly basis.  This is the first we've seen in several months. 

This photo shows from where the bird gets its name... 

Yard Activity

I was prepared to post more photos from New Mexico (I've finally moved beyond the Bosque del Apache in my processing!) but I spent some time in the yard today and had a new yard bird, so it's back to the Pacific Northwest.  Several days ago I took a nice photo of what I understand is an Eastern Gray squirrel so it's up first.  I have four or five which frequent the yard and they really need to go... you can have one or more FREE! 

 Today began overcast and not at all auspicious for bird photography.  However in looking out the kitchen window a little after noon I noted that there were probably 20 birds in our watercourse so I thought I would indulge myself in a little photography. I dutifully filled the feeders  and cleaned the bird baths.  By the time I had finished the chores it had begun to sprinkle but I hadn’t gotten out with my camera yet.  After just a few minutes it stopped so I sat on our bench to see what the weather was going to do.  It didn’t take long for the day to get interesting. 

After being outside for only a few minutes all three of our woodpeckers showed up… a pair of Northern flickers, a male Hairy and a male Downy.  It didn’t take the Hairy and Downy long to get into it.  It matters not that there are multiple feeders and bird baths in the yard.  In nature they are competing for the same food sources so there is almost always friction between them.  The Downy was trying to get a drink from one of the bird baths when the Hairy decided it was time to intercede.  It flew to a couple of feet above the bird bath and I then noticed that the Downy woodpecker had apparently disappeared.  Then I spied it hanging upside down on the bottom side of a one-inch staging stick I have by the bird bath.  It had fooled me but not the Hairy woodpecker.  The Hairy woodpecker ran it off.  Unfortunately I was waiting on the weather and still hadn’t brought my camera outside. 

I retrieved my camera and positioned myself where I have a photographic corridor of two bird baths, several staging areas near the feeders and most of our watercourse.  There were lots of birds in the yard but most of them were House sparrows. 

Both Black-capped chickadees and Chestnut-backed chickadees were in and around the yard as well as Red-breasted nuthatches.  I also had House finches and American goldfinches, many of which were this year’s production. 

After a while my attention was drawn to a bird that quickly flitted into the yard.  I only got a brief glimpse at first and thought that it might be a Mountain chickadee (which I am still waiting to see here) but when I got a better look I realized that it was a warbler.  It flew rather directly to the upper pool of the watercourse and I had a good view so I started taking photos.  I probably took about a dozen photos in all and kept most of them.  It was very difficult to keep in sight as it was rather easily confused with the Black-capped chickadees and I soon lost track of it.  I went and got a bird book and discovered that it was a Black-throated Gray warbler… a new species for the yard!  It made a fleeting return about a half-hour later but gave me no opportunity for additional photos.  

 

While I was in the yard we were visited by a Bewick’s wren, a bird my wife has seen several times in the past week or so but an unusual visitor to the yard.  

We also had another relatively rare visitor for this time of year… a female Red-winged blackbird which visited one of the sunflower feeders.  It’s fairly common to have the males and females visit the feeder during the breeding season but I haven’t seen one for at least two months.  My theory is that during the breeding season both parents are busy defending their territories and nests and they want to spend a minimal amount of time away from the nest and hunting for food.  The city’s waste-water treatment plant is down the hill from us and there is a sizable marsh where the birds nest.  They make direct, rapid trips up the hill to get the quick, easy food and then rush back to defend the nests. 

We also had what has become a daily occurrence… a sighting of our resident parakeet which has established itself in our trees for the past couple of months.  At times I’ve been able to get quite close to the bird but on other occasions it’s quite skittish.  We tried various ways of capturing the bird with no success, so it appears that it will be on its own for the winter.  I finally obtained a couple of decent photos of the bird this afternoon when it joined the sparrows to eat seed off of the ground. 

 

Finally, I photographed this American robin with an interested observer...

Other visitors:  European starlings, Rock pigeons, a female Anna’s hummingbird (and a male just before dark), a Belted kingfisher flying high overhead and crows. 

Still in the Bosque del Apache, New Mexico

A Double-crested cormorant drying its feathers over one of the Bosque's many ponds...

A pair of Great-tailed grackles, an extremely gregarious bird that often causes problems in parks throughout its range.  Fortunately, when I moved from Texas to the Pacific Northwest I left this species behind!  

I was watching over a marshy area when there was some kind of disturbance in the cattails.  I was watching to see what developed (nothing, as it turned out) and so was this group of female grackles.  

 To my knowledge, this is the first Virginia warbler I've seen (or photographed) for my non-existent life list.  I wasn't aware of the significance of the bird at the time I photographed it due to my, "Photograph now, identify later" philosophy.  

How To: Ibis Eating Marsh Morsel

This White-faced ibis found a juicy morsel in the marsh at the Bosque del Apache NWR.  I assumed that it was a crawfish, but after examining the photos a little closer I think it may be something else. 

First you pluck your food from the marsh...

 If you're a shorebird it's almost mandatory that you beak your food around a little... 

You then get down to the serious part, lining the food up and getting it from your beak to your mouth... 

After you feed yourself you stand tall among the other ibis, knowing that no matter what happens the rest of the day you're not going to starve to death!  

Bosque del Apache Birds from May 5, 2011

 I'm slowly trying to work my way through the photos I took on my spring birding trip and, like the last post, am displaying photos I took at the Bosque del Apache NWR just south of Socorro, NM.  

First up is a Black phoebe, a fairly common flycatcher that is almost always found around water. 

 

Next, a Western kingbird, a flycatcher that is usually difficult to miss.  While the phoebe is catching smaller insects near the water, the kingbird is producing much grander antics and generally going after the larger insects (such as grasshoppers) on the ground. 

 

And finally, this unidentified flycatcher which, like a lot of the flycatchers, is difficult to assign to a specific species.   That doesn't mean that it isn't work photographing!  

The sunshine I have been enjoying for my yard photography has ended for the time being so for this post I'll be dipping into my supplies of photography from my Southwest trip I took last April/May. 

These are all waterfowl photos that I took in the Bosque del Apache NWR just south of Socorro, New Mexico.  It's my favorite preserve for birding and photography and you'll probably see more photos from there soon.

This is a Double-crested cormorant in a limb over a small pond.  It was drying its feathers in the sun... something they have in abundance in that area of the country! (Sun, not feathers!)  The cormorants lack the oil coating that many other waterfowl have so they haul out from time to time to dry their feathers.  Lack of oil provides the cormorants with the capability to swim underwater without having to contend with so much positive buoyancy. 

This is an American coot with young. Depending on your point of view, these are either some of the ugliest chicks ever born to a species or they're some of the cutest.  I can't imagine how the chicks' coloring helps them survive.  It seems like it would just make them an easier target for frogs, snakes, turtles and other denizens that share their watery habitat.  You wouldn't catch me swimming in the areas they frequent! 

The American coot chicks, even at this young age, are remarkably independent of their parents, although you might not draw that conclusion from these photographs.  The chicks roam quite far from the parents and neither the parents nor the chicks seem concerned about the practice. 

Be sure to click on the photos to enlarge them for viewing! 

 

Even though it seems our very short summer might be over we are still having occasional interesting sightings in the yard as we move into days of overcast.  Last week we had two Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon) return to the yard.  They will be our most numerous visitors in another month or so.  We're hoping for the single Slate-colored junco that has been a winter visitor for the past four winters, but we'll probably have to wait awhile for it.  

We've apparently had a Bewick's wren visit the yard at least twice this week.  Yesterday we had a White-crowned sparrow, something we haven't seen since sometime last spring.  We also had a single Song sparrow last week.  The occasional fall warbler (usually Yellow or Wilson's) visits the yard and shows an interest in one of the water features.  And finally, someone's cage-variety parakeet remains in the yard after about a two-month stay.  It has changed location from it's original tree and apparently fancies itself  'Lord of the Yard'.  It fusses at anything it doesn't like... lawn mower (not ours!), leaf blower, cats, people or other activity. 

Chickadee, Starlings and Robins

Another couple of days of sitting in the yard enjoying the new changes to the birding landscape and and a few more photos to add to the files. 

In addition to the watercourse changes I moved a rock bird bath, which is extremely heavy, to a better viewing/photography location.  The move was only about two feet but this is a solid block about 16-18" cubed!  At any rate one of the first benefits of the move was this Chestnut-backed chickadee having a drink from the bird bath.  I later photographed both a Chestnut-backed chickadee and a Black-capped chickadee on the bath at the same time. 

 

 Are European starlings gregarious?  Of course they are... way past the point of being obnoxious!  These were taking a bath together in a relatively small bird bath.  I count at least five in this photo, but I've got at least one other photo that shows more! 

 

I photographed this American robin against the tree root I mentioned in my prior post.  It went on to bathe in the upper pool of the watercourse.  

It seems that every time I sit in the yard and watch/photograph birds I learn something.  Yesterday afternoon I had an apparent family group of American robins enter the yard and the two adults went to different water features to bathe, with one of the young robins following each.  At the smaller bath one of the adults immersed itself while being closely watched by the young robin.  After a short while the two appeared to be having some sort of disagreement with both opening their beaks in an apparent threatening posture.  I probably took close to fifteen photos of this behavior.  The adult bird would settle in the water and then the two would open their beaks and, in some cases, actually lunge towards each other. I've thought about some possibilities but I don't have a good explanation for the behavior.    

It

Watercourse

Here we go with watercourse photos after our recent changes.  This shows the north side of the watercourse, the side from which I formerly took photos.  The watercourse used to run down the middle of the rock cairn into the pool with the hyacinths in the lower center of the photo.  

This is a closeup of the north side of the rock pile.  The watercourse has now been rocked over but I had the pond people leave some holes between the rocks so that I could insert some plants.   The large brown object in the top of the photo is a large tree root given to me by a friend.  The upper pool of the watercourse is just the other side of the root... a group of bright green water hyacinths can barely be seen under the log.  The watercourse flows from the upper center of the photo off to the right side of the photo, away from my position. 

This is a closeup photo of the tree root given to me by a friend.  The birds often use this as a staging area for the upper watercourse.   This view is from the south side of the watercourse and is close to the view I have when photographing birds on the root. 

This is the south side of the watercourse.  In the upper center of the photo you can again see the bright green hyacinths in the upper pool.  The water cascades down towards the center of the photo, then veers to the left into a small intermediate pool, again containing hyacinths.  It then travels down a narrow rocky path to the lower pool back on the north side of the rocks.

To the right of the watercourse is my peat bog with some carnivorous and other interesting plants, and below it is a succulent bed. 

Early September Yard Birds

I spent more time in the yard yesterday... mostly hoping for one of the rarer fall migrants.  I didn't get that, but I did manage to photograph a Brown creeper.  I noticed that it bathed in one of the bird baths then paused for just an instant which was enough for me to snap several photographs.  This bird spends its time traveling UP tree trunks extracting insects from the cracks in the bark, a task for which it's well-suited given its relatively long, down-curved bill.  If it were not for the birds' almost constant motion this bird would be extremely difficult to spot due to its almost perfect camouflage.

Our Northern flickers almost completely disappeared for a few weeks but have recently returned.  This is apparently a juvenile male.  We now have three different woodpeckers which are utilizing our suet... the flicker, Downys and Hairys.

It's a period of transition and most of our Rufous hummingbirds have been replaced with Anna's.  (female Anna's hummingbird pictured.)  Yesterday I had both a brightly-colored Rufous female in the yard and this Anna's hummingbird and they didn't get along well.  For the past couple of years we've had one or two Anna's hummingbirds over-winter with us.  Since I note they are here during the winter whether I feed or not, I try to maintain a hummingbird feeder for them through the winter.  It can be challenging given some of our weather!

Finally, for this post, part of this year's remaining California quail family.   We started with about ten and are down to about four chicks and the father.  The mother disappeared mid-way through the child-rearing.  I may have mentioned that a couple of weeks ago we had a different pair of adults show up with a single chick, but we haven't seen the chick in over a week now.  And just a few days ago we had an unwelcome (to the birds) visit from an accipiter, so that may explain at least some of the missing family.