I’m still trying to recover/hone my typing abilities after the three surgeries (elbow, wrist and finger/palm) I had on October 5. My pre-surgery typing has definitely improved but I’m still having difficulties with the right side of the keyboard. Thank so many of you for your encouragement and inquiries as to when I would resume blogging.
I’ve managed several birding trips in the car over the past couple of weeks (my usual winter birding activity) and now have a couple of periods in the yard as supplements. I’ve got enough photos/stories for a couple of blogs, but ‘lm going to publish them in reverse chronological order. So first these photos I took in the yard on November 11, 2017.
It was a dark and dreary day… : ) … and much cooler than my healing finger would have liked, but the presence of Varied thrushes in the area around the house induced me to stay outside longer than I would have liked.
Beginning with the mundane, we have four of these Eastern Gray squirrels in the yard of which I would love to divest ourselves! This one is taking a rest after gobbling some of the bird seed I scatter for the sparrows.
A Golden-crowned sparrow (probably a male)…
And another Golden-crowned sparrow taking a bath in the watercourse…
One of the Song sparrows we have in the yard. It took me a while before I was really confident of my identification between it…
… and the Fox sparrows…
The sparrows are the birds that provide a little something to do while waiting for the more unusual visitors… like this juvenile Cedar waxwing, the first waxwing of which I’m aware that has visited the yard in about a year. I think this is the first juvenile I’ve ever seen and it is quite a shock comparing it to an adult which always has perfect plumage.
We got an unexpected visit from a Brown creeper, which I’ve said on many occasions is difficult to photograph even when you can find one.
And finally, the bird that motivated my hunt… a Varied thrush, presumably a female. We had three males in the yard earlier in the week and another male on this day, but I wasn’t able to photograph any of the males.
ln closing I want to note that we have had at least one (and usually only one) Slate-colored Dark-eyed junco in the yard every winter for the past eleven years. Yesterday I saw a second one, although I never see two at the same time! Our original visitor this year had a very dark (black) mantle while the one I observed yesterday had a mantle the same color as the bird’s neck and back.