Out of the Yard

I haven’t updated my blog in the last couple of weeks due to the lack of any kind of weather that facilitates photography.  I finally caught a break Monday (10/29/2012) afternoon so I headed out with my camera and managed to come home with a few photos. 

I should explain that at this time of year things are in transition, and rather than see photos of birds in the yard I’ll be transitioning to birds I can find around the greater area.  Often my best photographic opportunities in the winter are of shorebirds along the shoreline and in farm fields, and of raptors which unfortunately are mainly relegated to the power poles along the roads.  (What I wouldn’t give for a few well-placed Texas trees up here!)  And since the weather is more photographer-unfriendly, you can expect that I won’t post to my blog as often… but when I do, I may post more than once in a relatively short period of time. 

So first the yard news.  We’ve had our first pair of Varied thrush (last week) and our first occurrence of a Mourning dove on the ground.  It’s only our second sighting of a Mourning dove in our yard and the first one never came down to the ground.  We have at least one Anna’s hummingbird (a male).  Last week we had a little intra-species rivalry around the yard with two female Northern flickers and two male Downy woodpeckers.  I haven’t seen any Red crossbills or kinglets in a couple of weeks.  However we now have a very full complement of Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) in the yard.  I’m still hoping to have a Slate-colored junco before the winter is over. 

On to today’s photos.  The Bald eagle pictured at the top of this post was one of several around the March Point Road.  

The Red-tailed hawk pictured above was off the La Conner Road a short distance and the European starling below was actually at the Farmhouse.  The starlings can be difficult to photograph due to light reflect8ing off their feathers, but in this case the lighting was just right. 

I encountered this Western grebe (below) on my second trip around the March Point Road.  This bird seemed almost unaware of me and I was able to get to within about twenty feet of it while it was preening.  

As I mentioned in my last blog, it appears that winter weather is finally with us.  To me that means winter photography with all its limitations, starting with slower shutter speeds and, (a hard swallow!), higher ISOs.  However it's not all bad... for the most part I won't have to contend with shadows from foliage, beaks and the birds' own faces.  And winter provides a break from the summer birds and provides the opportunity to photograph whole new classes of winter visitors.  It's one of those with which I'll begin.

Saturday, on my way home from breakfast out I spied my first winter loon (presumably a Common loon) in the local yacht basin.  I hustled home, grabbed my camera and arrived in time for some photos.  Unfortunately it was raining during much of this photography session, but not enough to make a disastrous difference.  And this was the first time I had the opportunity to use a lens rest that I designed and constructed for the passenger side of my car a couple of months ago.  (It worked very well!)

I was a considerable distance from the loon and had to settle for photos that will not look good when blown up, but I obtained some interesting photos.  I tried again for photos today and found the loon again, but was at least as far away and it never quit raining and blowing for the entire hour or more I tracked the bird.  But for better or worse, here are a few photos...

When I first photographed the loon it had just surfaced with a fish... one that I would have thought would have more or less sufficed for a day's worth of food.  As a matter of fact, the loon spent the next hour or so preening. 

And just to give you an idea of the capabilities of the camera (Nikon D300S) and lens (Nikon 200-400mm f4.0) with which I'm working.  The image below is the original image as recorded on my camera.  As you can see, the photo above discards probably more than 90% of the recorded image.  That I can recover as good an image as I have seems truly remarkable!  

 

If you have the patience, after much preening the loons will usually stretch their wings which can provide a really interesting photo... unfortunately at a too-slow shutter speed.   

I think it's really onto me now!  

And now that you've been sated with loon photos, here's a Killdeer I encountered on the way out of the marina area.  These birds are usually quite easy to photograph when using a car as a blind.  

Beginning of Winter Weather Yard Birds

I spent a little time in the yard last week despite the overcast weather.  I had a great opportunity to photograph one or more Golden-crowned kinglets but found in processing the photos that many of the photos weren't especially sharp.  I seem to be having some minor focus problems with my lens/camera but in some photos it seems to operate just fine.  It may be a function of the overcast and lack of light, depriving the camera of some of the contrast it uses to perfect the focus.

With that little explanation behind me, on to the photos...

As I already mentioned, one of the few photos of a Golden-crowned kinglet I thought was salvageable.  I hate to miss these opportunities because this is a beautiful bird and photographic opportunities don't happen that often. 

This is one of an ever-increasing number of Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) that frequent the yard.  I'm hoping that a little later in the year we'll have a member of the Slate-colored race show up as it has for the past five years.  And I wouldn't mind if it brought the rest of its family!   (Note the detail in this photo compared with the detail in the photo above despite being taken from approximately the same distance and at the same focal length.) 

What at first appears as a cute little 'innocent' at one of the bird baths.  This is a juvenile Red crossbill... 

but it like's its space when taking a bath, as evidenced by it's posture towards this Pine siskin!  

Red Crossbills and a Special Red-Breasted Nuthatch

Monday, October 8, 2012 was another good day for photographing birds in the yard.  My wife retrieved me for a look at a Stellar's jay, a very rare visitor, but by the time I got to the yard the bird was gone and I never saw it return. 

Some of you may be getting tired of seeing Red crossbill photos, but I'm not getting tired of taking them!  The old adage, "Make hay while the sun shines" would seem to have more than a little applicability to the situation at hand.  I'm only getting about an hour a day of direct sunlight on the watercourse as fall progresses.

Here we have an adult female Red crossbill... 

And an adult male Red crossbill... 

And an adult male House finch for comparison...

 These Red crossbills are juveniles in different stages of development.  The first may be a female while the second two photos are apparently of males, and may actually be the same bird. 

And finally, an unremarkable photo of a remarkable bird.  This is the Red-breasted nuthatch that landed on the end of my lens while I was photographing other birds in the yard!!! 

On Friday, 10/8/2012 my wife hosted her women’s discussion group in the morning which offered me the opportunity to go birding for the day.  I made my first stop at the development on the NW part of the island where I’ve obtained some sparrow and American goldfinch photos recently and managed to obtain even more.  

Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago while photographing at this location I had the opportunity to 'disassemble' some thistle heads, the seeds of which are one of the goldfinches' favorite foods.  I was surprised by how small the seed was in the heads... much smaller than the niger that many people purchase in the bird store.  And knowing that the birds have to pull out the fluff in the head to get at the seeds, it reminds me of the old celery analogy.  It seems like the calories/nutrition you obtain isn't worth the effort to eat it!  

After spending considerable time at the development I meandered my way over to Fir Island where I eventually encountered a couple of small groves of trees that were hosting at least a dozen Yellow-rumped warblers, apparently of both races.  I say apparently because at this time of year you’re dealing not only with the two races which are quite similar, but also with differences in the sexes, the fact that the birds’ breeding plumage is in transition and the fact that some of the birds are going to be juveniles.  It can make for some challenging identifications.  

I'll call this first warbler an Audubon's race (there is actually more yellow on the throat than it appears in this photo... 

And this is probably a Myrtle's race... or not!  

I spent about half an hour photographing the warblers and then left the area to have some lunch.  When I returned to the same area about an hour later there was not a bird to be found in either grove of trees.  Apparently I had been fortunate in encountering a small group of migrants. 

This encounter brought to mind another of my birding perplexities.  For about three years there was a small grove of trees with underbrush in the middle of a marina parking lot near me.  For two to three falls in a row this area hosted a significant number of Yellow-rumped warblers over about three weeks of the fall migration.  However the Yellow-rumped warbler is a rare visitor to my yard, but I’m only located a few hundred yards (‘as the warbler flies’) from the marina parking lot and would seem to have better habitat. 

On the other hand, on Sunday, October 7, 2012 I estimate that I had at least 20 Pine siskins in the yard.  And periodically they would all fly down to the watercourse for drinking and bathing.  They were much more brazen than usual, and at least a couple of times I sprayed them with a hose using a diffuser nozzle and they seemed to love it.  It’s been a dry couple of months and I guess they welcomed the ‘rain’.  

Since I didn't photograph in the yard on 10/7, I've 'borrowed' this photo of a Pine siskin from a 10/1 session...

Thursday's Birds

There were a couple of times on Thursday when the yard was flooded with birds.  I first took my camera out a little after noon, one of the few times now that sunlight falls directly on the watercourse.  Due to the sun passing lower and lower in the sky each day these times are growing significantly shorter, and it probably won't be long before I won't have any direct sun on the watercourse.  While in some ways this is a setback for my photography, it also means that I won't have to dispose of so many photos due to shadows.  It's difficult to believe how many compromises there are in photography, and most seem to work against the photographer.  But that's another topic. 

I hadn't been in the yard but a couple of minutes before a Golden-crowned kinglet flew to the watercourse and I started taking photos.  This bird will probably be with us all winter, but up until this time it has been rather elusive and reluctant to actually land in the watercourse.  Yesterday two of them were involved with chasing each other around the yard and beyond.  But at any rate I managed to photograph one of them taking a bath, and this provided the opportunity to capture the bird's ruby crown which often is difficult to see in the field.

Another noteworthy bird in the yard, and one which up until this year has been quite rare, is the Red crossbill.  As I think I mentioned in a previous blog, these birds are quite shy and are experts at entering the watercourse undetected.  Yesterday they were visiting in small flocks and there would be times when at least five or six would be in the watercourse area at the same time.  In previous visits they would usually integrate their trips to the water with a lot of House sparrows or Pine siskins, but yesterday they were visiting singly and in small flocks.

I'm even having difficulty identifying the birds.  Earlier in the season the adult males and females were quite distinctive, but as they have raised young I'm getting birds of many diffierent hues and colors.  I think this bird might be an older juvenile since I've seen females with much more color during the past couple of months, but I'm just not sure.  It could also be a male juvenile changing into adult plumage. 

Here's an adult male, one of the rarest and shyest of the species to visit the yard...

And Thursday, for the first time, I observed that the crossed beak on what must be really young Red crossbills is hardly noticeable!  This bird, when its feathers aren't fluffed up from bathing, could easily be mistaken for a Pine siskin or a female House finch. 

 

And we're getting ever more Pine siskins and Dark-eyed juncos in the yard.  At one point I counted six siskins on one of the bird baths at one time, but birds would leave in one direction and be replaced by birds coming from another direction.  There must have been at least a dozen in the lower areas of the yard and I noticed on several occasions that groups were also eating from fir cones in the upper crowns of the fir trees.  

So we're getting a lot of visitors but it's mainly the same (winter) birds.  We now have a single Song sparrow which can generally be found in the yard and should be with us all winter.  Late in the afternoon we saw a Bewick's wren traversing a bench in the yard. 

Monday, October 1, 2012 turned out to be a beautiful day.  Despite a very sore lower back I had taken my 2.25-mile morning walk in Washington Park.  After a ‘recovery nap’ my back felt better so I decided to bird at the development-in-progress (San Juan Passage) on the NW portion of the island, in part because just sitting in the car wouldn’t aggravate my back problems.  However I first made a call to change our insurance and by the time I was finished with the call (about noon) Nancy was seeing a lot of bird action in the yard.  I had already loaded my camera equipment in the car but decided that I should give the yard a chance, especially since I had considerable light and at that time the light was shining directly on the main portion of the watercourse.  As things turned out, it was a good decision. 

After only a brief lull when I first started and got situated the birds came back into the yard.  As usual, it was mostly House sparrows but I immediately saw four male House finches, at least three of which were in water features at the same time.  Chickadees were strangely absent but my attention was quickly focused on three Northern flickers that were putting on a show.  Two of the flickers (a mature male and a female) were interacting, chasing each other around the yard and having confrontations.  This took place on the sides of trees, on our fence and on the ground.  When about a foot or two apart one would jump at the other and although I never saw any contact there was a lot of posturing.  I managed to photograph both sitting on our fence by the garden.  

This isn't a great photo for several reasons, but it's rather dramatic so I thought that I would include it... 

The fact that we would have three flickers in the yard at the same time was somewhat surprising.  Until a couple of weeks ago we had had only very rare sightings of a female flicker, and it was very shy.  For a while it wouldn’t enter the yard if I was out with my camera, but in the past few days it began frequenting all of our feeders (suet, peanut and sunflower seed) and has gotten bolder and bolder.  It’s now to the point where it will approach a feeder when I am standing as close as 10-15 feet away. 

I noticed at one point that we had a male Downy woodpecker, a male Hairy woodpecker and two or more of the Northern flickers in the yard at the same time!  Later in the afternoon a female Downy woodpecker visited one of the water features. 

And during the entire 2-3 hours that I was in the yard the Red crossbills kept coming back to visit the water feature.  In the past it was usually only a mature male and female, often together,  and more recently we have been having juveniles of an undetermined sex.  Unless examined very closely they appear to be brown and it’s very easy to mix them up with the many House sparrows in the yard.  Their technique for a visit to the water feature is to let several sparrows go in for water and then they dart down and intermingle with the sparrows.  Due to all the activity it can be challenging to separate them from the sparrows.  Yesterday on several occasions we had an entire family visit the watercourse at one time, with a mature male and female and at least two juveniles.  And I managed to obtain my first photos of one of the juveniles, which has been a goal for some time!  

In this photo one of the crossbills is having a little argument with a House sparrow that is just out of the photo on the right...

We have at least two Anna’s hummingbirds frequenting the yard, at least one of which is a male.  Yesterday the male made an unusual number of trips to the water feature and I managed to acquire more photos of it in flight (1/120 shutter speed), but unfortunately I don’t think I got any with the light reflecting off its gorget.  Late in the afternoon I noticed that the male kept returning to a location that was too close to me to photograph, so I eventually moved my chair back so that the location would be in focus range.  However at that point the bird decided to relocate elsewhere.  We have a feeder hanging in our Pacific yew tree and despite the tree receiving little sun, the hummingbird seems to like to spend time in the middle of the tree’s canopy… where I can’t photograph it due to lack of light, too close a focal distance and intervening branches.  

Another couple of photos of the male Anna's hummingbird, this one with its gorget showing... 

 and this photo with his back to the camera in the only stationary shot I managed to obtain.

Our population of Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) is slowly growing and by mid-winter they may rival the House sparrows as the most numerous birds in the yard.  And I’m looking forward to the arrival of at least one Slate-colored junco that we’ve logged each of the last five winters. 

In between all the other activity I kept myself busy photographing American robins, Spotted towhees, House sparrows, Red-breasted nuthatches, Golden-crowned sparrows, a Song sparrow, chickadees and a shy and elusive Golden-crowned kinglet.  

This isn't a very good photo of the Golden-crowned kinglet, but it's enough to provide identification and I'm including it due to all the 'work' I had to do to obtain the photo... 

 And along the way I took these and other photos... 

Chestnut-backed chickadee...

Pine siskin standing in the watercourse...

 and male Downy woodpecker...

Throw in a few shots of airplanes and helicopters flying overhead and I was left with a 140- image processing load!  After processing I ended up with 84 photos, 12 of which by my standards I judged ‘outstanding’.