Overwhelmed with Yard Birds!

I had a rather stellar hour and a half in the yard yesterday.  It began when I was sitting at my computer in my office and glanced out the window just in time to see what appeared to be a yellow bird going down through the canopy of our Golden Chain tree towards our watercourse.  (Unfortunately, through either age or false hopes many of the birds I see moving these days appear yellow.)  I decided to take a chance and rushed for my camera downstairs, then crept outside until I had a good view of the watercourse and other bird baths in the yard.  I had to wait a few minutes, but eventually a warbler emerged from the tree.  My guess is that it is a female Yellow warbler, but I can't rule out a Wilson's warbler.  I obtained photos of it not only in the tree but also along the watercourse.  It was a great start to a very productive photographic period. 

During the period I sat in the yard I had 5-6 appearances by Orange-crowned warblers, including two in the watercourse at the same time.  It's the first time I can ever remember having two warblers in the yard at the same time, but that's probably because once I see one I become so focused (pun intended) on it that I ignore just about all other bird activity!  One of the warblers brought some sort of colorful insect to the ground and spent about five minutes attempting to eat all of it.  I think I took 39 photos of it and retained 24 of them!  (You can't believe how difficult it is to discard good warbler photos, so I'll be having a sale on them later in the week!) 

 

Here's a more serene pose by an Orange-crowned warbler perched over the watercourse. 

 I've included this photo I took of House sparrows for a special reason.  I've found it difficult to obtain photos of a male and female House sparrow together.  In my yard the sexes are almost always separated, even though there may be well over a dozen waiting to access the same feeder.  While I can use photo-processing software to display a male and female side-by-side, it's nice to have a real photo of the two of them together. 

 Finally, for this posting, I had a cooperative Anna's hummingbird that seemed very interested in the water as long as other birds were enjoying themselves in it.  It hovered just over the water on several occasions, letting me obtain in-flight photos at a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/200th of a second.  It's not a very good photo, but click on it to enlarge it and examine the details of the bird's feathers. 

 And finally, here's a photo of a Song sparrow enjoying the watercourse...

The following birds made appearances during the time I was in the yard:

(presumably) Yellow warbler 

Orange-crowned warbler 

Golden-crowned kinglets

Ruby-crowned kinglets

Golden-crowned sparrows (at least two)

Song sparrow

House sparrows

House finches

Northern flicker

Hairy woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

California quail (five males and one female)

American robins

Dark-eyed juncos, Oregon race

Chestnut-backed chickadees

Black-capped chickadees

Red-breasted nuthatches

Brown creeper

Spotted towhees

Anna’s hummingbird (which hovered above the watercourse and allowed me to take photos) 

European starlings

I've been on a lot of outings where I didn't see as much, and this was all in the yard and I managed to photograph most of these species!  

The tally for 1.5 hours of bird observation/photography:  178 photos of which I retained exactly half!   Add about three hours for processing/cataloging images and at least another hour for writing/composition and you can see what this hobby does to a retired person's discretionary time! 

Continuing My Spring Birding Trip to the Southwest

Continuing with my spring birding trip across the Southwest...

I encountered this male Western bluebird in Bryce Canyon (Utah) National Park. 

Immediately after the Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico, the Bear River NWR (Utah) is probably my favorite refuge for photography.  The following photos are from the Bear River NWR which, by the way, has a beautiful new visitors' center.

Shorebirds are one of my weaknesses as far as bird identification is concerned, and I don't know whether this is a Whimbrel or a Long-billed curlew.  I'm guessing a curlew.  If any of you viewers have a definitive opinion please let me know! 

After having just stated my weakness for shorebirds, I'm going out on a (short) limb and identifying this as a Spotted sandpiper.   I'm very happy with this image and I have several others that are almost as good. 

Leaving (thankfully) the shorebirds, I am proud to make a Lark sparrow identification on this next bird. 

Early October Yard Happenings

I was 'solicited' to change the style of my blog when I logged onto the blogging site this morning.  I like the new style in that viewers can more easily see recent prior blogs and decide whether or not to view them.  

First up, the bane of my existence in the summer and early fall season... the extremely gregarious European starling.  As soon as the young leave the nest they somehow discover the suet feeders in our yard and manage to go through my suet at alarming, and expensive, rates.  I use the inverted suet feeders which slows suet loss and I've also come up with a modification to the feeder which seems to help, but I still resent the amount of money and time I have to spend restocking the feeders. 

Once the birds have matured (by just about this time of year) the problem is greatly diminished and I seldom have a problem until the following breeding season. 

At the other end of the spectrum I had this Yellow warbler visit the watercourse this past week.  (I also had a Yellow-rumped warbler visit but the photos I obtained were not as good.)  The warblers are always welcome but are attracted only by other birds and the habitat we provide (as in water).  Most of the warblers that visit the yard are only here for a few minutes before moving along, so I feel fortunate when I'm out with my camera and have the opportunity to photograph one. 

]I just noted that my Lightroom software indicates that I have just over 200 warbler photographs cataloged.  This wouldn't be all the photographs of warblers I have.  I have some high-quality photos I took with my Panasonic 'point and shoot' camera and some other unprocessed photos I have taken with the Nikon D300S, but if you'd asked me a couple of years ago how many warbler photos I would have by now I couldn't have anticipated this many.  They're generally difficult to find and even more difficult to photograph.  My inventory was aided substantially by the driving trip I took through Oregon and Arizona this past spring. 

And finally, if you do any bird-watching you'll understand when I say that there is no bird like the American robin that so enjoys a good bird bath.  This one has popped up for a safety check before really getting into things!