More Weekend Birds

We're an equal food/shelter opportunity yard, and the first creature up isn't a bird.  We have a new visitor, a chipmunk.  Last week I saw a rather large rat emerging from the same brush pile utilized by the chipmunk.  We've also had Douglas squirrels, Eastern Gray squirrels (very unwelcome visitors), a coyote about a week ago and occasional cottontails. 

We've also had our share of young birds that have been raised in the area this year.  I'm including a large number of photos in this post so I may list this year's production in a future post.  But among the juveniles...

An American goldfinch (as told by the burnished gold color on its wings)...

Ajuvenile Dark-eyed junco (Oregon race).  I've mentioned in prior posts that this was the first year we had a pair in the general area.  In the past they have all left for higher environs, but this year a pair stayed in the area and produced young which are in the yard.  

Here's another (or maybe the same depicted in my prior post) juvenile Spotted towhee.  we have these at several stages, so presumably we had multiple families raise young during the season.  On Sunday morning I looked up in the bushes near my photographic lair and saw a young Spotted towhee that was almost entirely black... in fact, it reminded me of a Black phoebe.  It was only about six feet away but I need about 15' minimum distance to get my lens to focus, so there was no hope of photographing it.  I saw a young one today that was morphing into adult plumage, so I figure there were at least three successful breeding efforts in the area. 

While I'm on the subject of Spotted towhees, I photographed this magnificent male in the yard.  They don't get much better than this! 

We also have at least one juvenile Black-headed grosbeak in the yard plus a pair of adults.  (I believe this is the juvenile.)  I obtained better photos than this, but my purpose in including this photo is to show just how well the grosbeak's plumage blends with the native madrone trees.  It's like they were made for each other.  I often see a grosbeak fly into one of our madrone's but it's usually all but impossible to see them while they are in among the leaves.

We have both Chestnut-backed chickadees (depicted here) and Black-headed chickadees in the yard and both have raised young this year.  This one is standing in the watercourse in preparation for a bath.

And finally, we had a special, rare visitor.  This bird flew to one of the bird baths and I was trying to figure what species it was until I looked carefully through my telephoto lens.  It's a juvenile, female Red crossbill.  If you enlarge the photo by clicking on it you can view the bill in more detail.  There is just a hint of color on the base of the bird's breast and at the base of the bird's tail.  We normally only see one or two visits per season (if that) and this is our second.  It's been a good year! 

This is the second post I've done today, so be sure and view the prior post! 

Summer Yard Birds

We had better weather on Saturday than given to expect with regard to the forecast and I spent a significant amount of time in the yard photographing birds.  My primary purpose was to photograph the House wrens nesting in a bird house over the patio on the south side of our house.  I hadn't evaluated the light in the early morning and it seemed good, so I positioned myself to where I could photograph the wrens on one of the staging limbs I located about 40-50 feet from their house.  

The adult birds would spend significant time on the perch, preening, singing and posing with insects they had obtained.  Some of the time on the perch was spent singing with an insect in their mouths!  (Try that at the dinner table with your mouth full!)  

 

 We've got more than our share of young Spotted towhees in the yard, some of which are barely recognizable and which seem to have no contact with parents.  This is one example... 

 

And finally, we still seem to have a pair of Anna's hummingbirds in the yard and several adult female Rufous hummingbirds.  We've also got what I assume are juvenile male Rufous hummingbirds, one of which I think is pictured below.  In prior years the hummingbirds seemed to enjoy taking a bath in the watercourse, but this year it seems like an attraction but I have yet to see one actually land in the water or bathe!  

A few more images taken in the yard this week...

A Black-capped chickadee, found in our yard in about equal numbers with the Chestnut-backed chickadees...

A female Rufous hummingbird on the crocosmia...

And another... or maybe the same one!

A Pine siskin of which there are many in our yard.  Note the very pointed bill and the subtle yellow on the wing...

And last, a male House sparrow feeding a young bird...

You should be able to click, or double-click, on any of these images and enlarge them. 

I believe that we still have young House wrens in the bird box.  We had five Northern flickers visiting the yard a day or so ago and we still have five young California quail left out of this year's production which started with about 12-13... I think two males and three females.  We haven't seen the adults in some time.  And this evening, well before dark, I saw one of our Downy woodpeckers enter one of our bird houses and although I watched for several minutes I didn't see it emerge.  My guess is it's using the house as a roosting box rather than a nesting box but I'll be keeping a closer eye on things over the weekend!  My impression is that many of the cavity nesters prefer to do their own excavations and this nest box was empty, but now next year I might consider filling it with wood shavings.  

I’m almost too embarrassed to report that we had a new yard bird species this past week.  I was in the yard late in the afternoon when first one, and then a second, Eurasion Collared dove appeared.  I had seen the birds on Samish Island several times in the past but this was the first time I had seen them on Cap Sante.  Once I saw the doves I raced for my camera but never had the opportunity to photograph one.  Owing to the bird traffic in the yard I felt sure that they would return but I haven’t seen them since.  A birding friend who I encountered on Sunday mentioned to me that she had them in her yard and that their vocalizations were ‘driving her crazy’.  So maybe it’s a good thing that the doves haven’t returned. 

Moving out of the yard briefly, I have discovered what I think is probably the largest concentration of Red elderberry bushes on Fidalgo Island.  A couple of weeks ago I visited the location to try to photograph all the birds they would attract (especially American robins and Black-headed grosbeaks) but was disappointed in that the berries were very plump and red but there were no birds eating them.  Visitors and a back problem kept me away for about a week and when I returned at the end of last week… virtually all of the berries had already been consumed!  What a disappointment!  I’ll now put a reminder on my calendar and return next year, hoping to monitor the situation a little more closely. 

I note that the Oregon grape in the yard is full of berries that appear ripe and if history repeats itself we’ll have two to four American robins that will move into the yard and eat them all in just a couple of days. 

The House wrens nesting in a box over our south patio are still with us but I expect the young to fledge any day now. 

And on the wildlife front, this weekend I spied a rather large rat emerging from our brush pile where the birds like to congregate.  It will join the list of rodents that have included the Eastern Gray squirrels and rarer Douglas squirrels and chipmunks.  Hopefully it will be taken care of by a coyote, owl or one of the cats that roam the neighborhood. 

I was able to spend more time in the yard last week so I’ll provide a few images I captured…

A female Rufous hummingbird accessing out crocosmia...

 

I photographed this Rufous hummingbird sitting on a madrona branch in the yard.  Upon closer examination, I think this is probably a juvenile male Rufous hummingbird due to its coloring.  As I stated in a previous post, the adult Rufous males have been gone for several weeks.  

While in the yard this Turkey vulture soared overhead.  One of these nice days I need to just recline on my back on our patio or parking pad and photograph what flies overhead! 

 

Finally, while in the neighborhood late one afternoon I photographed this Pelagic cormorant (identifiable at this time of year by the white patch just behind the wing) returning to its roost.  The cormorants' flight paths are interesting and I'll try to write more about that subject at some future time, but this one is traveling around the island and just over the water.  

 

 

As you might have been able to tell, reading from the other post that I published just today, I had about given up hope for any real excitement in the yard.  I was very premature!

While sitting in the yard this afternoon, suffering through back spasms that have plagued me since Sunday,  I noticed a female Anna's hummingbird.  A few minutes later a male appeared, but try as I might on it's 3-4 visits I just couldn't get a photo of it.  I had some good, fleeting opportunities but the female Rufous hummingbirds, which were continually sparring among themselves, were even more aggressive towards the male Anna's.  It was frustrating!

I think I obtained some of my best hummingbird photos this afternoon, but that thought is not especially unusual.  Every time I take hummingbird photos I seem to think they are better than the last batch.  Whether they are or not is a subject of subjective conjecture.

Here are some of today's hummingbird photos...

Two different photos of what is probably the same female Rufous hummingbird.  (At one time this afternoon I saw four females accessing this crocosmia bush... which they love!

Another female Rufous hummingbird...

Hmmmm...  I believe that this may be a juvenile male Anna's hummingbird.  You can see a gorget that is beginning to form but it isn't completely developed yet.  (If anyone feels like providing input I'm always open to comments and suggestions!)

So the afternoon was a little more exciting than I had expected!  But it was far from over!  About 3pm something in the sky overhead caught my attention and I looked up to see two Ospreys, as Rodgers and Hammerstein penned, "making lazy circles in the sky".  I was somewhat more prepared than the last time they visited and I managed to shoot them at a much lower ISO and therefore obtained a much better photo...

But I was also puzzled, because with the Osprey was another raptor that wasn't an Osprey, even though it seemed to be accompanying them.  I was fairly sure it was a falcon but couldn't verify that with my naked eye.  I took several photos which again turned out quite nicely.  My original guess was that this was a Merlin, but I was wrong.  Two different readers, one who is an expert on Merlins, identified it as a Peregrine falcon.

 That was enough excitement for one day... but it wasn't over yet.  While I was upstairs processing the day's photos my wife called out that there was a male Western tanager in the watercourse.  I hobbled downstairs as quickly as I could but by the time I grabbed my camera and got outside it was gone.  However I saw around in the yard for some time and the bird made three more appearances.  I did obtain one photo (a record shot) but you won't see it here.

Thought for today:  If you believe in reincarnation and want to come back as a hummingbird, don't come back as a female Rufous.  The males are only around for a matter of weeks and then leave the female to raise the young!  

All in all, it was a day that far exceeded my expectations!

Let me start by saying that the House wrens nesting over our patio are very active and I expect the young to fledge any day.  I just hope I'm around with my camera to record the event.  This isn't a good photo, but it gets across what the dwelling is like.

We're into the summer doldrums with not a lot of variety of species visiting the yard.  The most interesting birds we have now are woodpeckers (Hairy and Downy) and the hummingbirds.  All of the male Rufous hummingbirds have already left to fly south, leaving the females to raise their young.  We had a pair of Anna's until at least late spring but I haven't had a positive identification of one of them in 2-3 weeks. 

So for this post I'll show some of the female Rufous hummingbirds in the yard. 

I was a little puzzled over the identity of this hummingbird, but I'm fairly certain that it's a Rufous.  Not only does it have some splotchy rufous color on the tail, but if you look carefully at it's breast, just forward of the wing, it appears to have rufous there also.  

A Tale of Two Wrens...

For the last several weeks we have been delighted that a pair of House wrens have nested in one of our bird houses and we enjoy hearing them sing from time to time.  A couple of days ago, for the first time, I saw one of the young birds stick its head out of the door to receive food brought by one of the parents. 

I had taken some photos of one of the parents early on in this activity and was happy to have the photographs (one posted on a previous blog), but I wasn't very happy with the photograph because the bird was substantially backlit.  I've been hoping that by just sitting in the yard I would eventually get a photo of one of the birds, but they're quick, can be somewhat secretive and it just hadn't happened. 

This morning I was in the process of getting ready to go shopping when I stepped out the patio door and spied one of the adults on a staging perch of one of the feeders that has been inactive for several weeks.  I stood for about a minute watching, and when the bird didn't fly I ran for my camera.  It was still there when I returned, but in trying to maneuver for better lighting the bird flew.  I decided to wait for a few minutes to see if it might return.

While I was waiting another bird flew into my view and I whiled away a little time taking several photos of it.  I saw movement in some young madrones behind the other bird and soon noticed movement on the side of one of the large fir trees.  By its behavior I at first thought that it was a Brown creeper (which would have been another welcome photo subject) but when I peered through my telephoto lens I saw it was a wren.  I was able to take probably 20 photos of the wren, but after I had about gotten my quota I realized that something about the wren didn't look right.  I enlarged the photo in my viewfinder and found that the bird definitely had to be a Bewick's wren!

Now I was in a state of confusion!  Had I misidentified the bird I had photographed several weeks earlier  and misidentified the birds that were nesting in our bird house?  While I was trying to sort through all of these confusing thoughts a wren flew to the staging stick where I had originally seen it, and this time while taking photos I was more careful in my identification.  This was definitely a House wren... one of the parents using our bird house.  I was able to take many more photos of it before it moved on. 

Bewick's wren... 

House wren...

So what would you be doing if you were a House wren and were getting ready to successfully fledge a new family?  Well, burst forth in song might be a good guess!  (What a mouth!) 

Ospreys

This afternoon about 3pm while I was in the driveway weeding I happened to glance up and see a pair of Ospreys circling overhead.  We've had them in this area before but they are quite rare, although not especially when considering all of Fidalgo Island.  These aren't the first I've seen around Cap Sante this year, but since they were overhead and visible from the yard I count them as yard birds. 

I watched for a couple of minutes and when it appeared that they might circle for awhile I ran for my camera.  Lying prone in the driveway I managed to snap a few photos as they circled over the house.  Here's one of them...

Tis the Season!

I was able to salvage a few hours from the weather on Tuesday afternoon for a little photography at Bowman Bay State Park.  I found that many young have fledged by this time of year. 

Interestingly enough, I found what was apparently the same Swainson's thrush that I had photographed several days previously in the same area and was able to photograph it again... at a considerable cost in time.  I observed it many times but could only get within acceptable photographic range on a couple of occasions.  My first photograph was of what I've decided is a juvenile... it lacks the breast striping of the adult and had a yellow edge to its beak.  Curiously, I saw no interaction between this young bird and its parent which was in the area.  And I'm not even sure there were two parents... I never saw more than one thrush at a time. 

 

My next discovery was of a family of White-crowned sparrows.  Both adults were feeding young, but they soon flew and I only obtained a photo of one of the young birds.  

Finally, I discovered a family of Chestnut-backed chickadees feeding in the trees.  This photo is of one of the young begging for food.