On April 21 I discovered a small group of shorebirds at the Cap Sante Marina.  I was somewhat surprised because I hadn’t seen that many shorebirds this past winter, and they had been conspicuously absent at the marina.

I retrieved my camera and approached the flock, but hadn’t noticed a Killdeer which spooked and flew, vocalizing and frightening the other shorebirds which also flew.  They made a couple of circuits then settled down again, and I was able to approach them quite closely.  I had also brought my 1.7x tele-extender which I rarely use.  But not all the photos I took used the extender.

So here are some of the photos of the Dunlin that I took:

The birds often appear to be sleeping, but there always seems to be at least one eye open which misses nothing!

And my final photo of a Dunlin, in this posture is here for a reason…

After I took a lot of photos, I realized that one of the shorebirds appeared to be slightly different from the others.  It didn’t mix well with the others and had more of the reddish-brown on its cheeks and crown.  So I concentrated on taking some good photos of it in the hopes it might not be a Dunlin.

Paydirt!  I sent a couple of the photos to a birding friend who is much more talented at identification than I am and was told that the bird was a Western sandpiper, a bird that I have never knowingly photographed.  And since I had focused on the bird I now have a nice group of really good photos of one!

I had an absolutely stellar day for birding photography on Sunday.  I photographed several birds which can not only difficult to find, but very difficult to photograph, including this Ruby-crowned kinglet and Bewick’s wren on a little country lane just outside of Stanwood.  And I obtained very good multiple photographs of all of these birds.

I also encountered a large grouping of Yellow-rumped warblers, all of which seemed to be males. This example is of one of the Myrtle’s race.

On Fir Island, at the F&W HQ tract, I encountered another smaller (but more concentrated group of Yellow-rumped warblers… of both races. First up, another male of the Myrtle’s race, followed by a male of the Audubon race and finally a photo showing both races in the same photo, although only the Myrtle’s is in sharp focus.

Saturday, April 19, 2014 began as a most unlikely day for birding and photography.  The winds were relatively gusty (which usually makes the birds lay low and difficult to spot) and there was a heavy overcast with the threat of rain.

However, not to be discouraged, on the way back from breakfast I observed a couple of eagles soaring over the Cap Sante Overlook, gathered my camera and drove up the hill.  The eagles were too high so I wasted a little time photographing gulls that were taking advantage of the updrafts.  As I sat in my car looking out he window a male Anna’s hummingbird landed on a nearby blackberry blossom stalk left over from last year.  It was almost too close to photograph, but I managed several good photographs on several different trips to the overlook.

A little later I was down on lower Cap Sante talking with a neighbor when a bird flew onto the fence structure of his garden.  I recognized it almost immediately as a Townsend’s solitaire… not the first I’ve seen on Cap Sante but all the same a relative rarity, especially for the urban habitat.  I photographed the bird, then followed it down the street, photographing it as it flew from rock to rock.

At this point I’m going to digress slightly and show you a photo of an Orange-crowned warbler in our watercourse that I took yesterday.  This was only our second observed warbler visit of the year, both by Orange-crowned warblers.

And to round out this little show, my best photo of the day.  The same male Anna’s hummingbird as the one appearing in the photo earlier in this blog.

I had thought my Saturday photography was probably finished after the Orange-crowned warbler I had photographed earlier, but hoping for better warbler shots (with the sun on the water feature) I went back to the yard at 5pm.  (See prior post.)

I had no longer gotten settled in the yard when, through a small window in our fir trees, I spied a falcon headed my way.  In the fastest move I have ever made in this regard, I switched my focus to continuous and spun my shutter speed up.  (I didn’t have time to check it, but fortunately it had stopped on 1/1250/sec.)  I took about 8-10 photos while the falcon made a circle or two, then headed off with a crow in pursuit.  I’m assuming that this is a Merlin, but I’ll try to receive confirmation from a friend whose life work is Merlins.

I took my camera out in the yard slightly before 3pm on Saturday, April 12.  There were very few birds around and there was a little too much wind but the sun was out.  Unfortunately this was the slot in the afternoon when the sun doesn’t shine on the watercourse.

Right at 3pm I thought I saw a yellowish bird fly down to an unusual point, out of my view, on the water feature.  As I cautiously moved forward to investigate it flew, but after watching it for a few seconds I realized it was a warbler.  It returned to the watercourse and this time worked its way to where I could view it better.  I took about 15 photos, and as I photographed the bird it revealed its distinctive orange crown, which usually isn’t visible.  However when the bird bathes and gets its crown wet, it often shows… sometimes in a spectacular fashion.  The photo of the bird with it’s crown showing wasn’t of very good quality, but you can barely see it in the final of these three photos.