I couldn’t resist the little word play in the title of this post, and in a few minutes you’ll see why!

I can now announce that we are freshly back from a week-long trip to New Mexico.  On the day of our return it was raining at the airport in Albuquerque and the sun was shining at SeaTac when we arrived… go figure!

It’s always a treat to visit another area which offers different birds and different habitats.  I think I added one new bird to my non-extant life list and, like the Cackling geese in my last blog, I managed to obtain photographs.  But that bird will have to wait until a future blog since I’ve enjoyed myself with the little word play in the title of this post.

One of my favorite birding areas is the Bosque del Apache NWR just a few miles south of Socorro, NM.  It’s a large preserve that offers good habitat and two long driving routes which in turn offer me the opportunity to use the car as a blind and steady platform from which to photograph birds.

On our first morning while driving into the preserve I spied this (presumably Western) meadowlark sitting on a fence post.  My wife wanted to pass it by and look for others, but I insisted on circling back for photographs and I’m glad I did… we never saw another one nearly as close.  In retrospect, the old adage about a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush would seem to aptly apply in this case.  I think the series of photographs I took of this bird are my favorite of the trip!

The meadowlark was quickly followed by another couple of birds on posts.  The first is a male Red-winged blackbird.

I have yet to decide on what the second bird is… you can influence my decision by emailing me with suggestions.  I think we can probably agree that it’s a blackbird, but probably not a mature female.

The final bird of my ‘post’ series is a Common raven, much more common than the population that we have around here.  This one was animated and kept vocalizing with us parked just a short distance away.  It almost seemed like it was talking to us and didn’t seem at all afraid of us!

On Monday, Nov 8, I drove up the Skagit River to meet friends for lunch and to see if I might be able to photograph an American dipper.  It was not to be so, somewhat disappointed, I decided to drive back through the Samish Valley.  There I encountered a very large population of Canada geese which I usually see on Fir Island.

I pulled off of the road to photograph some of the geese and almost immediately noticed a couple of very small geese (noticeably smaller than the Snow geese) that looked very similar to Canada geese.  I didn’t have a bird book with me but did have my Sibley app on my phone.  I guess it’s good I didn’t have the book with me because it didn’t have a listing for what I was seeing… a pair of Cackling geese!  Not only had I never seen one of the birds but I hadn’t even heard of them!  No matter… it is apparently a new classification, a life bird for me and, most importantly, I was able to obtain photos!  I’m not proud of the photos… the light was bad and the geese were wandering through a plowed farm field, but photos of what I consider rare birds is still an achievement!

Cackling Goose

The following day I spent some time in the yard so I’m going to throw in a few of those photos too.

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Fox Sparrow… the first I’ve seen in the yard this season!

Dark-eyed Junco, Oregon Race

My wife hosted a women’s discussion group this morning so it was incumbent on me to disappear for at least a couple of hours.  Since I had been serving my 5th tour of jury duty in my lifetime (I have friends who have never served) I was glad for the opportunity to get a little time to myself and renew my acquaintance with my camera and the great outdoors.

The following photos were all taken off-island… some on Channel Drive and some on Fir Island, except for these first two which were taken on March Point.

Great Blue Heron

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

This isn’t the greatest of photos, but when processing this and several other similar photos I noticed that this Black-capped chickadee was actually feeding from a small seed cup on this plant.  I watched as several different chickadees made trips to the seed pods for seeds.

Black-Capped Chickadee

The following birds, an Orange-crowned warbler, presumably a male Spotted towhee and a Lincoln’s sparrow (nice find, Joe!) were all at the end of Channel Drive.

Orange-Crowned Warbler

Male Spotted Towhee

Lincoln’s Sparrow

And finally, one of these Ruby-crowned kinglets was on Channel Drive and the other at the Fish and Game HQ on Fir Island.

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

Yesterday we had heavy fog for all but about an hour around 3pm.  I spent a little time in the yard but there weren’t many photo opportunities so I headed out in my car to see what I could find.  Making a somewhat longer story shorter, I happened on this female Belted kingfisher at the Cap Sante Marina and managed to take several photos before the bird moved on.

I just missed getting a really good photo of the bird with a fish in its mouth, but I had to settle for a photo of it in the process of gulping down the meal.

If you never remember anything else from this post, you can learn an interesting fact about the birding world.  The Belted kingfisher is fairly unique in the bird world, even among other North American kingfisher species.  The female Belted kingfisher has brighter colors (ie, a rufous-colored breast) than the male of the species.  (See who among your birding friends can name a North American bird species in which the female’s color is brighter than the male’s!)

I’ve gotten rather tired (and my neck has gotten beyond tired) photographing birds in the madrona trees in the neighborhood.  Yesterday (10/14/2013) I spent about three hours photographing birds in, around and under the madrona trees and found when processing my photos that I didn’t have all that much to show for my efforts.  Some of the problem is that I’ve spent significant amounts of time in the same location so I have not only a lot of photographs, but a very large backlog to process.  What I’m mainly interested in is some of our rarer (as in more difficult to find/photograph) birds and they just don’t happen along that often, so I content myself with photographing American robins.

Yesterday afternoon after returning from my second outing to the madrona tree I glanced out my kitchen window and spied a Varied thrush in the yard not 15 feet from me.  Shortly thereafter a Golden-crowned kinglet visited the watercourse.  That was enough for me!  I decided today (10/15/2013) that I would spend my time in the yard.  It was a good decision!

There were many, many birds in the yard.  I hadn’t been set up in the yard long, and was talking to one of my birding sisters in Texas, when a Hermit thrush flew to the watercourse area.  I could hardly believe it, but I was talking on the phone to my sister using one hand and taking photos of the thrush with the other.  I took what are probably my best Hermit’s thrush photos and my sister remarked that she could hear the ‘click, click, click’ of my shutter while I was talking!

Hermit Thrush!

Not long after I observed the first of two or three visits by a Golden-crowned kinglet.  I managed to take many photos of it taking a bath.  As I mentioned in a prior post, one of these photos shows the ruby crown that is usually hidden in the middle of the golden crown.  (And I should mention that there was also a visit by a Ruby-crowned kinglet, but it landed on a bird bath that was too close to me for the focal length of my lens.

Golden-Crowned Kinglet

Golden-Crowned Kinglet with Ruby Crown Showing

Finally, from the interesting sighting standpoint, a male Anna’s hummingbird, which will likely spend the winter with us, visited the yard on at least two occasions.  I’m not sure how these birds survive the winter but I try to help by keeping a feeder out.  The feeder doesn’t keep the hummingbirds from migrating south… they spend the winters here regardless.  I just try to make life a little easier on them.  A couple of winters ago we had snow on the ground for two weeks and we had a male that survived, so they get by somehow.

Male Anna’s Hummingbird