On 12/31/2013, facing seemingly deteriorating weather conditions, I discovered a Common loon in the northwest portion of the Cap Sante Marina on the way home.  I went home and retrieved my camera and returned to the marina to find that the loon had been joined by a pair of Hooded mergansers… an added bonus!  I took photos of all three birds and in the middle of my photography in flew a pair of Mallards.  The mallards are generally common, but these were a little odd because in the middle of waterfowl season they seemed to have no reservations about heading to the corner of the marina where I was standing.  So I added them to the bag!

Common Loon

Male Hooded Merganser at Cap Sante Marina

Pair of Mallards at Cap Sante Marina

Things were slow around the household on New Years Day (1/1/2014) so I suggested to my wife that we take a little waterfront excursion early in the afternoon.  We turned up nothing at the marina, but over on March’s Point we discovered what is apparently a Common loon, but with substantially different coloring (lighter) than the one I had photographed in the marina the previous day.  A little further down the road I encountered another pair of Hooded mergansers, and on this occasion the male had a rather large fish it its bill… certainly a bonus for photography!  I was again suffering through less than ideal lighting conditions, but when you photograph wildlife you don’t get to choose your opportunities!

Common Loon at March’s Point

Male Hooded Merganser at March’s Point

Male Hooded Merganser with Fish at March’s Point

I glanced out our kitchen window this morning (12/15/2013) and saw something red moving behind some twigs at the base of the largest fir tree in our yard.  Upon closer examination I discovered that it was a female Pileated woodpecker, the first reliable sighting in the Cap Sante neighborhood of which I am aware!  (I’ve lived and birded in the neighborhood for almost 13 years and am aware of no other reports, despite having several neighbors who are birders.)

Pileated woodpecker photographed in the Cap Sante Neighborhood!

I managed to sneak out of the house for some photos, but the day was heavily overcast and I was unable to obtain really good photos.  The bird was in the yard at least 30 minutes from the time I saw it, but I couldn’t continually observe the bird during that entire time because it went around to the opposite side of the tree.  Here’s hoping the bird will find a mate in the neighborhood and raise a family this next breeding season!

I spent time in the yard with my camera on 12/14/2013, but the photography was disappointing due to the lack of light.  I have to jump through some technical hoops to get anything at all, and the photos are quite grainy.  But I’m posting some of them anyway.  Perhaps in order of descending photo quality, a male Northern flicker, a Song sparrow and a Dark-eyed junco of the Oregon race.  (For about the sixth winter in a row we’ve had a single Slate-colored race in the yard but I have yet to document it this year.)

Dark-eyed junco of the Oregon race

Song sparrow

Male Northern flicker

We’ve also been receiving several daily visits by an apparent pair of Varied thrushes, fairly reliable winter visitors, especially if it snows.  Thrushes are generally considered to be berry and insect eaters (like their look-alike cousins, the American robins) but the Varied thrushes seem to be quite content eating hulled sunflower seed scattered on the ground… or as we perfer to refer to the seed locally, “habitat enhancer”!

Male Varied thrush

Presumably a female Varied thrush

And while I’m on the subject of dietary vagaries, here’s one final photo… of a Bewick’s wren supplementing its diet with a little suet!

Bewick’s wren on a suet feeder!

Last week I managed a couple of excursions around the area. I visited some of my usual haunts… March’s Point, the West-90, Fir Island and many areas in between. I was a little disappointed in the sharpness of my camera/lens on both days, but I got some of what I consider acceptable photos.

The highlight of the trips was when I was driving in the Bayview area and a Wilson’s snipe flew towards the car and dived into the roadside ditch almost beside me. Unfortunately there were no nearby parking places and I had difficulty shooting into the ditch from my vehicle, but I did get a few photos, this probably being the best.

Wison’s Snipe

The low point of the trip was when I saw this female Mallard bobbing up and down about ten feet offshore at March’s Point. Something didn’t look right about its movement. Upon closer examination I discovered that it was a decoy!

Female Mallard – decoy!

As for the rest of the photos…

Song Sparrow

Female Red-Winged Blackbird on a cattail stalk

Bewick’s Wren

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

This last photo of a Song sparrow on a dried yarrow head is one I consider more artistic than technically correct.

Song Sparrow on dried yarrow head

On my recent trip to New Mexico, and while at the Bosque del Apache NWR south of Socorro, I encountered a Green-tailed towhee.  I’ve probably only seen one of these birds less than half a dozen times, with all sightings having been in Texas before I was seriously into birding photography.  While I’m sure there are places where the birds can be reliably seen, I just haven’t discovered those places yet. I consider myself lucky to have seen and photographed this bird.  I first encountered it where the habitat had been seriously altered by the erection of a large tent which was to be used in the Festival of the Cranes, an annual celebration that was to take place the following week.  This bird was backlit and with a lot of sparrows, but as I find often happens, it separated itself from the rest of the group and garnered my interest by its behavior.  I managed a few photos in bad light (see below) and managed to follow the bird for a couple of hundred feet before it disappeared over a fence in the headquarters complex.

In addition to the thousands of Snow geese and Sandhill cranes, the refuge is the winter home to many other shorebirds and waterfowl.  At one of the ponds we were fortunate enough to be able to position ourselves directly over a group of about eight Wilson’s snipes and a Least sandpiper.  There was also a small flock of what might (or might not) have been Dunlin.  I wasn’t close enough to them to obtain good photographs.

Wilson’s Snipe

Wilson’s Snipe

Least Sandpiper

In addition, we saw a single American avocet in winter plumage on the refuge.

American Avocet, Winter Plumage

The most common sparrows on the refuge were the White-crowned and the Lincoln’s.  In general the two species didn’t seem to mix… each group had their respective small areas of habitat.

White-Crowned Sparrow

The Bosque holds an annual event that they name the “Festival of the Cranes” and our visit was, fortunately, a week before the festival.  As it was there was considerable disruption of some of the habitat areas, chiefly the cactus garden, by erection of a giant tent for the celebration.