I think I set a personal record of the number of photographs taken in one day in the yard on 2/1/2020… 307!

When we returned from Saturday breakfast with friends I noticed a feeder war between two male Anna’s hummingbirds in the yard, so I got my camera gear assembled and ventured out. I began to take photos, but unfortunately the males moved on and a pair of females moved in.

Later, in the afternoon, a male Varied thrush entered the yard and I went out again to try to photograph it. The thrushes have been quite wily this year and though I waited for a long time it never came around the corner of the house where I was waiting.

So I didn’t obtain my target photos, but while I was waiting I had lots of opportunity to photograph other birds. The overwhelming number of birds in the yard were Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) but I never get tired of photographing them. I’m amazed at the feathers on the birds’ hoods and how they meet the rest of the feathers on the birds.

This was one of the first birds I photographed… a Fox sparrow.

And what is probably the same Fox sparrow in a different light. I never see more than one in the yard at the same time, so I presume we have only one regularly visiting the yard.

One of the male, aforementioned Dark-eyed juncos…

A female Dark-eyed junco of the Oregon race…

One of the female Anna’s hummingbirds attempting to take command of one of our feeders…

Here is one of the male Anna’s hummingbirds I wanted to photograph, but it wasn’t displaying its gorget.

This was the rarest bird (for our yard) I encountered during the day… probably a first year juvenile White-crowned sparrow, but it could also possibly be a tan morph of the species. We only see this plumage (juvenile) in the summer in the yard, but when traveling to New Mexico we encounter the tan morph extensively. As I’ve said in a previous post, I consider the reservoir for these birds to be in the greater New Mexico area because there are so many of them.

And here is the adult of the same (White-crowned sparrow) species…

One of two Song sparrows in the yard…

A male Spotted towhee, one of at least three in the yard…

And the star of the day, a Bewick’s wren. These aren’t especially rare birds, but they are very active and generally prefer an underbrush environment which makes them difficult to photograph.

I was especially happy with this photo… a male and female Bushtit in the same photo and not on a (suet) feeder.

A female Bushtit…

My plan had been to post photos from some of my recent excursions beyond the yard, but with the bonanza of photos I took on 2/1 I decided to do another yard bird post.