On Saturday, August 19, I was just settling into a chair in our living room about 12:10pm (after a morning nap) when motion on our back patio caught my attention. I looked out our west patio doors and saw a Stellar’s jay on our gas barbecue grill. It was quickly joined by a second jay and then quickly both flew off to the south. To my knowledge this is the first time in at least a couple of years this species has visited the neighborhood.  In a scenario that has become all too familiar lately, I ran for my camera and then for my birding chair in the yard. They were, of course, gone, but I was determined to give them a good opportunity to return.

At about 12:35pm I was rewarded when they flew over me and landed in one of my neighbor’s trees to the north. I photographed one at a distance and saw it and at least one other fly towards another neighbor’s house about two blocks north of us. I called that neighbor and he was able to see two of them in his yard before they flew off to the west!

Stellar’s jays, despite seemingly very good habitat in the neighborhood, are extremely rare visitors, appearing only every coupe of years for a few days at a time.

Warblers and other interesting species continue to visit the yard. It seems that many of the birds are juveniles. I missed getting photos of a Brown creeper and an Orange-crowned warbler but managed to photograph either a juvenile and/or a female Wilson’s warbler.

Here’s a Chestnut-backed chickadee that I also photographed…

On Sunday, August 20 I had two visits from one or more juvenile Western tanagers.  I’m fairly certain that this bird is a juvenile, and the very slight amount of color on its forehead might designate it as a male.

This female Bushtit, judging by its behavior, is probably a juvenile.

I’ve managed to get some good photos of Red-breasted nuthatches lately, a not very common occurrence.  It’s not that we don’t have nuthatches, it’s that they are always on the move and don’t present themselves that often.

And the Black-headed grosbeaks just keep coming.  (No photo…. I’ve published enough!)

The last species for the day appeared just as we were ready to leave to have a little fast food picnic.  I decided to look out the kitchen window one last time and there, hopping around the watercourse, was a female or juvenile MacGillivray’s warbler!  I invoked the routine that has now become so familiar… I ran for my camera, sneaked into my viewing chair in the yard and waited a few minutes but the bird was gone!