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!!!