I’ve gotten rather tired (and my neck has gotten beyond tired) photographing birds in the madrona trees in the neighborhood.  Yesterday (10/14/2013) I spent about three hours photographing birds in, around and under the madrona trees and found when processing my photos that I didn’t have all that much to show for my efforts.  Some of the problem is that I’ve spent significant amounts of time in the same location so I have not only a lot of photographs, but a very large backlog to process.  What I’m mainly interested in is some of our rarer (as in more difficult to find/photograph) birds and they just don’t happen along that often, so I content myself with photographing American robins.

Yesterday afternoon after returning from my second outing to the madrona tree I glanced out my kitchen window and spied a Varied thrush in the yard not 15 feet from me.  Shortly thereafter a Golden-crowned kinglet visited the watercourse.  That was enough for me!  I decided today (10/15/2013) that I would spend my time in the yard.  It was a good decision!

There were many, many birds in the yard.  I hadn’t been set up in the yard long, and was talking to one of my birding sisters in Texas, when a Hermit thrush flew to the watercourse area.  I could hardly believe it, but I was talking on the phone to my sister using one hand and taking photos of the thrush with the other.  I took what are probably my best Hermit’s thrush photos and my sister remarked that she could hear the ‘click, click, click’ of my shutter while I was talking!

Hermit Thrush!

Not long after I observed the first of two or three visits by a Golden-crowned kinglet.  I managed to take many photos of it taking a bath.  As I mentioned in a prior post, one of these photos shows the ruby crown that is usually hidden in the middle of the golden crown.  (And I should mention that there was also a visit by a Ruby-crowned kinglet, but it landed on a bird bath that was too close to me for the focal length of my lens.

Golden-Crowned Kinglet

Golden-Crowned Kinglet with Ruby Crown Showing

Finally, from the interesting sighting standpoint, a male Anna’s hummingbird, which will likely spend the winter with us, visited the yard on at least two occasions.  I’m not sure how these birds survive the winter but I try to help by keeping a feeder out.  The feeder doesn’t keep the hummingbirds from migrating south… they spend the winters here regardless.  I just try to make life a little easier on them.  A couple of winters ago we had snow on the ground for two weeks and we had a male that survived, so they get by somehow.

Male Anna’s Hummingbird