Bowman Bay State Park

On Wednesday I spent the afternoon at Bowman Bay State Park, one of my favorite local areas for bird photography. 

My first encounter was with this Swainson's thrush.  They're rather secretive birds and are typically well hidden in the brush, so it's always a pleasant surprise to be able to photograph one.  

This is a male Brown-headed cowbird that obligingly sat on this limb and allowed me to take all the photographs I wanted.

This is a flycatcher but I'm uncertain of it's species.  I normally expect to see Olive-sided flycatchers in this area but I think this may be some other species since its breast markings don't seem very distinct.  When I first spotted the flycatcher it had a large dragonfly in its beak (sorry Libby!).

 I located an adult Barn swallow gathering mud and grass for nesting materials, but on the same day I discovered a pair of adult Barn swallows feeding young on a limb.  It didn't appear that the young could fly and I was puzzled as to how they ended up on a fir limb far from any structure.  After watching them for awhile first one, then the other took off and I realized that they were fully flight capable, although they probably couldn't yet catch their own food. 

And finally, while I was at the park I watched a family of River otters (and adult and at least two young) playing. 

Woodpecker Photos

These photos of juvenile Hairy woodpeckers were taken in the yard on Sunday.  For several weeks we've had a young male woodpecker hanging around the yard.  From time to time the adult male arrives with another young male and feeds the two.  While the woodpeckers are fully of adult size, I never see either making any effort to feed themselves. 

I had originally thought that all three of these woodpeckers were of the same bird, but in looking closely at the wing patterns I think that the third photo is of a different bird. 

Sparrows

A few of the sparrows around the yard:

Adult male, post-bath...

Female...

Overpopulation!  

Back in the Yard

I spend significant time in the yard photographing birds on Sunday.  We had two new visitors for the year... a pair of Red Crossbills which made numerous trips to a hanging platform feeder but which, I am sad to say,  haven't been seen since. 

In all I took 238 photos, processed all and retained 101.  I'm waiting for some help in identifying a couple of young birds I photographed, at least one of which is almost certainly a Spotted towhee. 

Here's a photo of a male House finch... 

And a photo of one of the young California quail taking a dust bath.  The young quail are already able to fly a considerable distance and gain at least 8-10 of elevation.  We're down to about ten but hope to retain more than survived last year.

Yet More Methow Valley Area Birds

A female Western tanager gathering nesting material...

A male Brewer's blackbird... 

A singing Black-headed grosbeak... 

A singing Western meadowlark...

More Okanogan County, WA

More photos from the Beaver Pond, Sun Mountain, Okanogan County, WA...

Spotted sandpiper...

 
Red-naped sapsucker...

Cedar waxwing...

Okanogan County, WA

Williamson's sapsuckers dining out at Beaver Pond below Sun Mountain Lodge...

Male...

  Female...

 

Western tanagers in Lone Fir campground, Methow Valley...

Male...

 

Female...

On Saturday, June 10, 2012 I finally had the kind of yard-birding day I had been expecting for a month.  It seems like, with few exceptions, we haven’t had the variety of spring visitors that we usually see in the yard.  I’ve spent significant time in the yard with (and without) my camera and our visitors have been somewhat disappointing. 

Our birding day began on our way back from breakfast on Saturday morning when my wife and I saw at least five and possibly six Bald eagles in the immediate neighborhood.  They weren’t visible from the yard so they didn’t go down as yard birds, but they were only about a block away.  The eagles, which all appeared to be mature, were being harassed by crows… a common state of affairs.   

For the past couple of weeks we’ve had Dark-eyed junco (Oregon race) in the yard and it has seemed amazingly adapted to my presence.  Yesterday, and possibly the day before, we had a pair of juncos in the yard.  While juncos are probably our most numerous winter yard bird, this is the first spring/summer that I have seen them in the yard this late.  The rest of the crowd departed several weeks ago, presumably for higher elevations where the apparently tend to nest. It’s not unusual to find juncos in Washington Park during the summer (several years ago I even located an active nest there located under a sword fern) and it’s even easier to find them on Mount Erie at this time of year.  It’s good to have these two holdovers and we look forward to welcoming another crowd this fall.  

I had a male Brown-headed cowbird come to our main water feature several times during the afternoon.  I’m sure it was the same bird because of its direction of approach and how it used the facility.  Fortunately the cowbirds are relatively rare here… I had only seen one other pair this season and they didn’t stay in the yard any time at all.  In this case I was able to get many photos of the bird, but I’m not especially happy with the light reflection I get off of its smooth outer feathers.  However these are by far my best photos of what I consider a rather secretive bird.  

Along the way I got photos of both the female Anna’s hummingbird and a female Rufous hummingbird taking baths in the watercourse.  

Moving right along, I had a male Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon race) enter the yard on at least three occasions.  Again, by its approach and the way it treated the water feature I’m quite sure it was the same bird each time even though it’s visits stretched over an hour or so.  I took many photographs of the bird and while they are probably not my best, there’s just some feeling of accomplishment to being able to photograph such a bird in our own yard.  I’m hoping that because of the number and spacing of its visits that it might become a regular summer visitor.   

And finally, saving the best for last, I logged a new yard bird… a House wren.  Our neighbors who have a much better habitat than we and who live not much further than about a block away (as the proverbial crow flies) have had one nest in the same box for several years in a row.  We don’t really have a good habitat for wrens in or around our yard and only see one (Bewick’s or Pacific) only very rarely.  This House wren was around all afternoon and was constantly singing from the tops of trees or scolding one of our cats.  Late in the afternoon I saw it briefly enter one of our bird houses.  And when I called it quits for the day it was singing from the yew tree near the south patio… but I realized that there was apparently another singing further south from around our fence.  So I’m hoping that we have a pair and that they will select one of our bird houses in which to raise a family.  

We still have our family of California quail apparently living in the brush pile located in our front yard.  It’s the most popular bird feature in the yard.  The parents took the young quail on their most ambitious journey I’ve yet witnessed, which threatened to take them out of our yard.  But in the end they turned around and retreated to the brush pile.  We’ve never gotten a completely accurate count of the young but know there are at least twelve and possibly thirteen. 

And as I write this I saw a Brown creeper access one of our water features.  I haven’t seen a creeper in a couple of months and it’s very unusual to view one at a water feature.  Had I been at my usual post I would have had some photos of what is a very elusive bird from a photographic standpoint.  

Here's a bonus photo... a male Spotted towhee settling in for a dust bath at the edge of the yard.  

I had an unexpected bonus bird this morning.  A friend has been telling me for several weeks that he has a Great Horned owl perched behind his house on many days but we didn't connect until this morning.  This morning at coffee he told me the bird was back so I retrieved my camera from the house, picked up my friend at coffee and drove to his house. 

When we arrived I had difficulty spotting the owl from his deck because it was so well camouflaged.  I doubt I ever would have seen the bird if I hadn't been told that it was in view.  I took about  fifteen photos in all, but was somewhat stymied in that the birds face was hidden by a single, very small fir twig that hung down and obscured either the middle of its face or one of its eyes.  After taking an initial group of photos at about 1/125 of a second I upped my ISO from 200 to 800 and obtained much better results, although after I adjusted the first group of photos using Adobe Lightroom I couldn't tell much difference. 

After just a few minutes the neighborhood's lawn crew arrived with a very loud riding mower and after a little of that disruption the owl decided it had had enough and flew down the hill into denser forest.  I managed to get a quick photo just before it launched itself, but its head is slightly blurred. 

However I think that you can appreciate what a magnificent bird this is from the photos. 

Tis the Season!

Hummingbirds are here now and though I've posted photos of them before I thought I would post a few more I've taken recently. 

We have both Rufous and at least a pair of Anna's hummingbirds with us this spring.  Here are some photos of one of the male Rufous hummingbirds...

And here are photos of a male Anna's hummingbird coming for a bath in our watercourse.  The Anna's doesn't seem to hang around the yard as much so photos of it are much more difficult to come by, and in this case all I have are the male Anna's hummingbird 'on the wing', although I believe that I have taken a couple of photos of the female Anna's on one of the feeders. 

Don't forget to look at the prior post... photos of a male Summer tanager after just having taken a bath in our watercourse. 

Serendipity... or, Here's Looking at You!

This is my second post today, so don't miss the first one below. 

This afternoon we had a contractor/friend/neighbor over to do some work on the house.  I was helping in some feeble ways.  He was through with the main part of the project when I went out through the front door to do something and came, figuratively, face-to-face with a male Western tanager sitting on one of my hanging 'staging sticks' under the Golden Chain tree (which has now entirely lost its blooms).  I was probably only about 25 feet away from the bird and it didn't fly.  From its posture I correctly guessed that it wanted to access the water feature, so I went back in the house and forbade anyone from going out the front door.  My friend, as he enjoys doing, reminded me that he was 'on the clock'! 

I retrieved my camera but remembered that my media card was upstairs by my computer.  I hurriedly rummaged through my camera bag looking for my little media card pouch, forgetting that I had a second different type of media card already mounted in the camera that I could have used.  I loaded the media card and crept out the front door.  The tanager wasn't in the main pool, as I would have guessed, so I began to sneak across the front of the watercourse mound to check the cascade part of the water feature.  Sure enough, the tanager flew from the water to one of the Madrone trees in the yard.  I had the opportunity to take about a dozen photos with the bird in a variety of poses on two separate perches.  You're seeing the results. 

This is actually the second male Western tanager I've seen in the yard this season, but the first was only here for a few seconds before it flew.  I'm hoping that it will consider this a favorable bath experience and return from time to time.  Yes, he looks a little rough... but how do YOU look just after leaving the shower?  

Yard Happenings

Time for another post.  It seems like I always have a choice to make… expansive text or photos.  Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon I had just about committed to a long narrative but I spent about two hours in the yard photographing birds and came away with 238 photos.  After initial processing I am keeping 101… too many, but I have a very difficult time throwing away what I consider good photos of subjects that can be as elusive as birds, especially since the images cost next to nothing to retain.  I had planned to post my images last (Sunday) night but it took all of my free time just to go through and grade my photos, deciding which to discard and which to keep.  I still have to go through the 101 photos and categorize and rename them.  I could use a full-time assistant for that task… and the backlog I seem to accumulate.  

My Sunday afternoon started out by weeding wood violets that have taken over in the front of the house.  Not long after starting I heard what I was fairly certain were Cedar waxwings… the second time this past week I thought I had heard them.  I looked around carefully and true to my ears, there were a pair sitting in the dead pine tree in our front yard!  A confirmed sighting!  I tried to ease myself towards the house and my camera but the waxwings flew.  

A while later I heard the call of Common ravens.  Some years we have a pair nest in the neighborhood, but this year it’s been relatively quiet and the crows’ behavior tells me that there are probably none around.  However in this case the crows were obviously after a raven.  I looked up after a few minutes and saw about half a dozen crows harassing a raven at an unusually high altitude.  After a couple of minutes I could tell the disturbance was coming my way.  I looked up again and was surprised to see four ravens flying from north to south overhead.  Seeing more than a pair of ravens is unusual for this area, so I knew that these were products of this year’s breeding.  

After a long period of weeding I quit for the afternoon and retrieved my camera, setting up in the yard where I have view corridors of some of the main staging areas and water features.  Almost immediately I heard a commotion overhead and looked up to see a young Chestnut-backed chickadee begging for food… one of the parents was on the suet feeder.  I had no hopes of getting a photo… I need almost 15-feet for my lens to focus.  However I saw a small yellow bird which I at first took to be one of the many female American goldfinches in the yard, but upon closer inspection I saw that it was an Orange-crowned warbler attempting to access the suet feeder.  I quietly watched, hoping the warbler would fly to the watercourse where I could photograph it.  But it was not going to happen… after a couple of minutes the warbler flew straight from the yard.  

I obtained some really nice photos of birds over the next couple of hours, but almost all the birds in our yard this spring have been the usual crowd.  I keep hoping for an influx of warblers but they have been in short supply in our yard this year.  I obtained some excellent photos of woodpeckers (Hairy and Downy), Chestnut-backed chickadees, a family of White-breasted nuthatches, a few European starlings, lots of American goldfinches and of course the House sparrows.  

Around 6pm I finally decided to call it quits and went back in the house.  I had no sooner taken my camera off the monopod than I looked out the window and saw the covey of California quail that my wife had spied a couple of days previously.  They were difficult to count, but there were at least 12 young and I think there might have been 13… in addition to the parents.  Since I hadn’t obtained any photos of the family I reassembled my photographic gear and headed back outside.  I took about 50 photos of the family, and I have to tell you that with each release of the shutter I mentally cringed because of the additional work I was causing myself.  I ended up throwing most of the quail photos away, but it was still work to look at each photo, see if I could salvage something by cropping, and then actually delete the photos.  

Unfortunately by the end of the breeding season we will be lucky to have 4-6 left.  That was about our tally the previous year, but unfortunately last year at the end we were down to one covey and out of about five survivors, not including the adult female which didn’t make it all of the way through raising the young, we were left with only a single female and about four males.  And I’m quite sure that it is that female survivor which is raising this family this year.  

I probably shouldn't start with a photo of part of the rogues' gallery who are eating me out of house and home by their appetite for suet. but it's what came up first so you get a European starling.  These birds can be difficult to photograph and show the colors reflected off their feathers, so that's why I included it. 

 A Chestnut-backed chickadee which, at least at this time of year, greatly outnumber the Black-capped chickadees in the yard.

 A White-breasted nuthatch in a nice, natural setting...

 

One of the (very small) California quail that is a member of this year's single covey. 

  

I usually don't like to include photos where the birds don't appear in totally natural environments, but I'm making a couple of  exceptions here due to the quality of the photographs.  A male House finch... 

  

and a photo of a male Spotted towhee that I took a couple of days previously.   Unfortunately I photographed it on one of my 'staging sticks' so it, like the House finch above, does not appear in a totally natural environment.