This was apparently a somewhat light day for birding photography.

Here’s yet another male Northern cardinal, a very common bird in central Texas.  I believe that I counted as many as five in the yard at one time, and you can pretty much assume that there was a female for every male.

There were one or two male Ruby-throated hummingbirds in and around the yard.  It’s usually rather difficult to get a good photo of the bird with its gorget bright enough to distinguish it from the more numerous Black-chinned hummingbirds.  I can’t distinguish the females between the two species.  This isn’t a great photo, but it’s a ‘record’ shot of a male in flight displaying his gorget.

Another male Painted bunting in a typical scene on a dead juniper branch.  You don’t waste branches… a dead branch is usually as good as a live one, and even better for photography.

A female Ladder-backed woodpecker on a Live oak tree…

And finally, a Western Scrub jay.  When I was growing up not that many miles away we only had Blue jays, but the balance seems to have shifted in the time since.

Another day in Texas with cooperative weather!

A pair of Brown-headed cowbirds, threats to central Texas’ endangered Golden-cheeked warblers, Black-capped vireos and other birds…

The ‘moving on north’ White-winged dove…

Another male Black and White warbler…

A Red Admiral butterfly.  These butterflies were plentiful when I was growing up in the Hill Country.  They congregated on the sap of the Spanish oaks and on wet, discarded watermelon rinds.

A Texas Six-Striped lizard getting a drink of water.  I have absolutely NO expertise in lizard identification and am only taking the word from my sister on this!

Back to the birds… a Lincoln’s sparrow.  We have these in the Pacific Northwest but I never have the opportunity for such a good photo here.  When I can find these birds I usually have to shoot from my vehicle in the winter.

The beautiful female and male Painted buntings.  Interestingly, this past winter a male showed up at a feeder only about ten miles from my house in Anacortes.  I was asked by many friends if I had seen it, but I never made the journey thanks to Texas hospitality!

Another male Northern cardinal, shown here in part for contrast with the last bird shown in this post.

And finally (… remember there’s always a finally’), a male Summer tanager and a little story to go along with the photos.

While my sister, her husband and I were sitting on the deck watching birds this male tanager flew and landed right next to us.  It landed on a staging stick associated with a garbage can lid bird bath, probably less than eight feet away from me, eschewing the more natural watercourse and bird bath about 20′ away.  On its first visit it perched on the stick, stared at us and vocalized for a minute or two before dropping to the bath and bathing!  Over the next few days it returned to the same bath several times, seemingly totally unafraid of us or my photographic activity.

Since we don’t have tanagers in Western Washington, I could have difficulty remembering how to keep the Summer and Scarlet tanagers’ names straight.  I realized that the Scarlet tanager “isn’t” (all) scarlet while the summer tanager is.  So my little mantra is that “the Scarlet tanager isn’t”!  It seems someone could have done a better job of naming these species!

This is a male Brown-headed cowbird, due to its breeding habits a threat to some endangered (and other) species such as the Golden-cheeked warbler and the Black-capped vireo in central Texas.  I won’t detail the birds’ breeding habits here but if you are unfamiliar with them look them up on the internet.

When I was young and growing up in central Texas White-winged doves were virtually unknown.  Just in my lifetime they have expanded north from the southern part of Texas.  Here in Skagit County, WA, we are dealing with colonies of Eurasian Collared doves, an introduced species that we have seen in various areas of the western US.

I believe this is a Black-crested titmouse, a new species that was reclassified since I left Texas (in 2001).

For most of the days that I was in Texas two thrushes came to the bird baths both early in the morning and fairly late in the evening.  Initially they were thought to be Hermit thrushes, but after many observations and photographs I could never detect any ‘reddish color’ on their tails.  So I’m assuming that they were Swainson’s thrushes which should have been migrating north, but the fact that they remained in the area over at least about a two week period would indicate that they were’t too serious about migration!

Now on to the warblers!   Here’s another Black and White warbler in a not uncommon pose.

This is a male Yellow-rumped warbler (Myrtle race).

I was excited when I first saw this bird because I thought it was a Golden-cheeked warbler.  Alas, it’s its very similar ‘cousin’ the Black-throated green warbler.  I’ve photographed the Golden-cheeks on other previous visits but it was not to happen on this year’s trip.

In late April I traveled to central Texas (the Austin area) to visit my sister and her husband and to photograph some of their spring migrants, some of which remain in that area for the summer months.  It affords me the opportunity to see and photograph birds which don’t occur in western Washington.

My sister and her husband are Master Naturalists and live on and maintain land that they treat as a nature preserve.  Their land is located in a rural area and they supplement the native landscape with bird feeders, bird baths and a watercourse.  These features afford me the opportunity for sitting in the shade, visiting with my sister and her husband and observing and photographing many species of birds for 8-10 hours (yep!) a day.

I have several days of photographs so I think I’ll just choose a few good photographs from each day and post them.  This might result in some duplication of species, but every photograph is different.  The photos on this post were all taken on April 22, 2018.  For the record, I returned home with exactly 1200 images and retained 806 of those images (about 67%) which is far too many but that’s what terabyte hard drives are all about.

I’ll apologize to any non-PacNW readers viewing these first two images, but Northern cardinals are birds I am often asked about regarding my trips down south, so they are of interest to some of my local readers.  And since they are colorful, abundant and relatively easy to photograph, you may see more from this Texas trip.

Moving on to somewhat more interesting birds, this is the Nashville warbler, probably the most common warbler I encounter on my trips to central Texas.

Another relatively common spring visitor (and I believe somewhat rarer year-round resident) is the Black and White warbler, one of my favorite birds.  This one is probably a male.

This next bird was something of a surprise.  It’s a Pine siskin, often our most numerous (winter) visitor here at our house in the PacNW but one I’m not sure I ever saw when living in Texas.  For several years my wife and I lived on a greenbelt near downtown Austin and I remember from some 30 years ago, one of central Texas’ premier birders asking me if we had them on our feeders.  It seemed a puzzlement him that we did not.

And finally, for the day, a rare central Texas visitor… the Pancho Villa titmouse!

The photo processing software that I use allows me to rate each image.  The ratings I assign are mostly subjective but do have somewhat of a technical basis.  I came up with some good images today so I’m going to post some of the images I rated as a ‘5’, my highest rating.

In no particular order…

A Red-breasted nuthatch,  We’ve recently had young show up in the yard and patronize our feeders, on several occasions having FOUR on one of our peanut feeders at one time.

A Black-capped chickadee, which prefers deciduous trees.

A Chestnut-backed chickadee, which prefers conifers.

Male Brown-headed cowbird.

Female Brown-headed cowbird.

(Female, or less probably a juvenile) Red-winged blackbird.

Male House finch.

Male Rufous hummingbird.

Not a ‘5’ rating, but the parents of the yet-to-fledge crows located just outside the corner of our property.  “Scratch that spot right there!”