Friday, October 9, 2015, was at least our second windy day in a row. I thought that this would discourage birds from visiting the yard, but it didn’t seem to be the case so I decided to spend some time in the yard.

One of my first interesting birds was what is apparently a Slate-colored Dark-eyed junco. I thought I had seen one several days earlier but I hadn’t gotten either a good look at the bird or a photo… this day’s photos confirmed it. This makes at least eight seasons in a row that we have had at least one Slate-colored junco in the yard.

My next interesting observation were two or more Yellow-rumped warblers of the Audubon’s race. They made several visits to over a long period of time. I can confirm from my photos that I had at least two different individuals in the yard, but I suspect several more. At a couple of times during my observations there were two in our watercourse at the same time.

Next up was a female Purple finch, the first I had observed in our yard and only the second one I’ve seen on Cap Sante in the 15 years we’ve lived here at three different locations. There’s so much (color) variation among male House finches that I doubt my ability to distinguish between the male House and Purple finches, but the females have a broad, white wash over their eye. I’ve always thought myself a better identifier of the females of the two species. This bird was approaching the watercourse when a squirrel frightened it away and it left the yard., but fortunately I obtained a couple of photos. After the Purple finch observation I’ve been making a point of more carefully observing the male finches that visit the yard!

Shortly after the Purple finch sighting I noticed a bird soaring behind some of our tallest fir trees. It was circling and there seemed like the chance that it was headed my way so I had time to quickly change a couple of settings on my camera to facilitate photographs of a flying bird. I’m fairly sure the bird is a juvenile accipiter and my guess is that it’s a Cooper’s hawk. I don’t usually see these birds in the air.

Later I managed to photograph a female Anna’s hummingbird feeding on our salvia. We also have at least one male and will maintain a feeder to try to help the birds through the winter.

Next up was a male Ruby-crowned kinglet, our second sighting of the season. It visited an alternate bird bath and I was able to obtain several photos of it.

Beginning to wind down now, a Brown creeper visited the same bird bath. I always have trouble photographing the creeper (I think the autofocus on the camera doesn’t deal effectively with the bird’s camouflage pattern) so a stay in the bird bath usually gives me multiple opportunities to get at least some photos with a good focus.

By this time I was quite pleased with the day’s photo production and was getting ready to pack it up for the day when a female Varied thrush appeared at the watercourse unexpectedly. I took some photos of her and then decided to call it a day!

On Monday, October 5, 2015, I spent a couple of hours in the yard.  We’ve had a lot of American robins and a few European starlings using the watercourse quite frequently over the past few days, and no one loves a bath more than those two species.  While I was in the yard I also observed almost continuous visits from one or more Golden-crowned kinglets, and one finally took the bait and entered the watercourse for a bath.  I probably took in excess of 40 photos… it’s such a cute bird to photograph!  In this case this is a male, which isn’t obvious from the following three photos.

So how do I know the bird is a male?  In this photo the bird is showing its orange crest, a feature it has difficulty hiding if it takes a thorough bath!

And I believe I’ve mentioned in prior posts that we’ve had a male Varied thrush in the yard for a couple of weeks now, and this past weekend it was joined by a female.  They too are attracted by the water and I finally managed some photos of the male.  I hope to obtain better photos as the season progresses.

Friday, October 2, 2015, provided a change of weather from what we had been experiencing earlier in the week.  The day was overcast and much cooler.  My wife called me on the phone shortly after I finished my walk and coffee and told me that the yard was full of American robins.  I was home a few minutes later and they were still around, remaining until after I had taken a mid-morning nap.  I decided that there were probably some good photos to be had and that there was a good chance that our recent Varied thrush visitor might be among them.  I retrieved my camera and took to the yard.  There was no Varied thrush (either by sight or sound) but the birds just kept coming… especially the American robins.

Here are some of the more innocent photos of the robins staging around the watercourse…

There were so many robins trying to use the birdbath that conflicts inevitably arose.  Here are just a few of the incidents of threatening posture that I recorded…

I was hoping that all the activity would bring in a few rarer visitors, but aside from an absolutely featureless Yellow-rumped warbler and a flock of about 40 Snow geese headed south, it was pretty much the same old crowd.

Here’s one of the many European starlings that came down from the treetops for a bath…

and one of our first Golden-crowned sparrows which will presumably be with us for the rest of the winter…

There have been no recent unusual discoveries in the yard, lately.  We continue to have daily visits from a male Varied thrush but it’s very shy and continues to elude me.

However we are having fairly frequent visits from one or more Golden-crowned kinglets which, after breeding at the higher elevations, will be spending the winter with us.  Earlier this week I obtained some nice photos of a male kinglet, which are posted below.  We know this is a male from the orange ‘crown’ in the middle of the yellow crown, as can be seen very faintly in the second photo.

For whatever reason, I find it difficult to get really good photos of chickadees, both in exposure and especially with regard to focus.  I can usually fix the exposure in processing (as I do with most of my photos) but the photos which are not in sharp focus get discarded.  This photo of a Black-capped chickadee looks a little under-exposed but I think it looks better that way.

I had friends today who asked me what the difference was between the Black-capped chickadee and the Chestnut-backed chickadee, so I’m going to take this opportunity to show a couple of photos of the latter.

Here’s a photo of a male Anna’s hummingbird which I trust will be spending the winter with us.

And finally (it seems there’s always a “finally”), a photo of what I am referring to as a leucistic female House sparrow.  This may be pushing the term a little in this case, but I’m on a roll this year!