Early on the afternoon of Friday, November 23, we had a lot of birds in the yard and although there wasn’t a lot of light for photography, I decided to try my luck.  I had to shoot at a higher ISO and slower shutter speed than I would have preferred, but I did obtain some photos.

One of the first birds I saw was a Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon’s) flying around the yard.  I wasn’t sure at the time but I thought there might have been two of them, a fact I later confirmed.

We had six species of sparrows…

The Oregon race of Dark-eyed junco, with which the yard is overrun…

The Slate-colored race of Dark-eyed junco, of which we have only one…

The Fox sparrow (again, apparently only one)…

The Golden-crowned sparrow, of which we have less than a half-dozen)…

The adult White-crowned sparrow (which we hadn’t seen for a few weeks)…

And a juvenile White-crowned sparrow from this year’s hatch…

I didn’t include photos of a Spotted towhee or Song sparrow, both of which were in the yard.

We had at least four male House finches and some number of females around the yard, all attracted to a small platform feeder…

This Chestnut-backed chickadee was preparing to take a bath in our watercourse…

Our California quail usually disappear for the entire winter, and I have never figured out where they go since they don’t migrate.  However the current crop (at least five males and six females) thus far show every intention of utilizing us for supplemental food this winter.  We had so few last spring that I was worried they had been extirpated from Cap Sante, but they finally came through and raised what I think were about three broods.

Tragically, the day really turned out to be a sort of Black Friday.  One of the warblers and a junco were chasing each other around the yard and flew into a window virtually next to me… neither survived.