October | 2018 | Wings Over Skagit

Birding in the yard has been VERY slow lately and as a consequence I’m beginning to shift to my extra-yard exploratory mode. As you can see from some of my recent posts I have been visiting some of my winter birding haunts. I’ve also been trying to catch up on some of my photo processing.

This particular post involves photos I took on a September 17, 2018, expedition around the area. On this particular day I observed five Red-tailed hawks along about a mile stretch just south of Highway 20. The photos here are of two of the hawks.

The other Red-tailed hawk was in the process of devouring a small rodent that it had just caught. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen this activity more often over the years.

Down the hatch!

And in touring March Point on the way home I came across a small group (six as I recall) of Sanderlings.

By September 21, 2018, the stream of warblers coming to the yard seemed to have slowed and I assumed that the fall migration was about over. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

My birding day began rather slowly about 11:30am with me filling some of the feeders and bird baths in the yard. There were few if any birds in the yard as I began my vigil under the eaves of the house to protect against very intermittent light rain. Things were slow so I decided to make a phone call. While I was on the phone (about 12:15pm) a Varied thrush suddenly flew into the yard, our first of the season and very early. We usually don’t see them until the winter snows deplete their food sources and drive them down from higher elevations. Unfortunately I had my phone in my hand and couldn’t bring the camera to bear before the bird flew out of the yard.

I had about an hour of only the usual birds, then over the next hour or so I had four species of warblers appear… Orange-crowned warbler (multiple visits to the yard, including five at one time!), a Yellow warbler, a male Black-throated Gray warbler, and a Townsend’s warbler which I at first mistook for a Golden-crowned kinglet, which were also in the yard at the same time.

I had my work cut out for me, especially with about 20 House sparrows, many American goldfinches, two species of chickadees (Black-capped and Chestnut-sided) and a variety of other birds all in the yard at the same time.

At one point there were FIVE Orange-crowned warblers in the yard at one time! Then later in the afternoon my fifth warbler species made its first of two visits, a Yellow-rumped warbler.

By the end of the day I had taken 375 photos of birds in the yard. Of those, I retained 219, but such is the luxury of digital photography and a four terabyte hard drive! So my inventory for the day was:

Thrush, Varied

Warblers (five species):

Orange-crowned (many visits, five at one time)
Yellow (one visit)
Black-throated Gray (two visits)
Yellow-rumped (two visits)
Townsend’s (two visits)

Sparrows (five species):

Towhee, Spotted
White-crowned
Golden-crowned
Song (first visit in a couple of months)
House

Kinglet, Golden-crowned (multiple visits)

Creeper, Brown

Chickadee, Black-capped

Chickadee, Chestnut-sided

Bushtit (>10)

Finch, House

Goldfinch, American

Hummingbird, Anna’s

Woodpecker, Downy

Flicker, Northern

Quail, California (2 makes, seven females)

Missing this day were our Dark-eyed juncos, which would have made six species of sparrows. The following day I had all of the same species of warblers visit except the Townsend’s, but a male Wilson’s warbler showed up making six species of warblers for the weekend… all in our yard! I think I managed photos of all the yard birds except the Varied thrush and kinglets which got passed over for some of the rarer warblers.

(The week of 9/24-30 we saw NO warblers or any other pass-through migrants.)

Here is a selection of some of the birds…

Female Bushtit…