I made a driving excursion on Tuesday, March 10 with very disappointing results.  About the best that can be said of my outing is that the Snow geese have realized that hunting season is over and are now congregating immediately beside some roads.

On Wednesday, March 11 I spent a couple of hours in the yard with better than expected results.  We are overrun with Dark-eyed juncos and Pine siskins… they probably constitute >90% of the birds in the yard by numbers.  However we had some rather rare and noteworthy visitors this morning, so I’ll get right with it.

I was in the house when I looked out and saw a Cedar waxwing land on the side of the watercourse.  I can hope for about 2-3 such sightings in a year.  Even though the bird had flown, I grabbed my camera and set up outside in the hope that the bird might return, especially since it hadn’t actually entered the watercourse.  Hope springs eternal, but not the Cedar waxwing.  I saw nothing of it for the two hours or so that I spent in the yard.

I then saw both a Fox sparrow, usually a fairly common winter visitor but absent for the last several weeks and a Song sparrow, a bird of similar visiting frequency.

Next up, our first Rufous hummingbird of the season (in this case a male).  It now joins at least one male and one female Anna’s hummingbird in preparation for the upcoming hummingbird feeder wars.  (The flying hummingbird is a male Anna’s.)

I then noticed a bird other than a siskin fly into the watercourse.  It was a female Red crossbill.  The crossbills are irregular visitors to the yard and watercourse, but we haven’t seen all that many this past winter.  It’s a welcome visitor and we’re hopeful it will bring friends and family to the watercourse this summer.

I was just about to turn it in for the morning when I peered through my camera lens at another hummingbird on the feeder that had been visited by the male Rufous earlier and discovered that we now have a female Rufous hummingbird, both arrivals on the same day.

I usually don’t take or post photos of hummingbirds on feeders, but since in this case I had photos of the actual first visitors I decided to make an exception.

And here is a final photo of one of two rather unwelcome visitors to the yard… an Eastern Gray squirrel.

Once the weather improved I managed several days out birding with not a lot unusual to display.  I did take some photos that I’ll share… just to keep the blog going!

Grain processing/storage complex against the sunset…

Mount Baker from Fir Island…

Window…

River otters on Fir Island…

I’m pretty cute… miss me yet?  (Ruby-crowned kinglet)

Scratching his head over the lack of bird photos in this post!  ((Female Red-breasted merganser… I hope!)

I’ve spent a little time photographing swans lately… it adds a considerable challenge to my photography.  Here are a few images…

This last photo isn’t as spectacular, but if you look closely all three swans are flying directly towards, and looking directly at, the camera.  And the faces of all three are in relatively good focus.  (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)

On Tuesday, Feb 23,2015, I headed out into the county for some birding.  I drove south to a site that had yielded no birds the previous day, but I had found birds here before and I was optimistic that it was only a matter of being at the site at the correct time and on the correct day.  My persistence payed off… I discovered a large number of birds, and on making my third round of a rather small circuit I discovered a puddle by the side of the road with adjacent bushes and a forest beyond.  I had overlooked the water on the previous circuits because I had been looking out the car window at eye level or above, and not down on the side of the road.  I knew when I found the water I was on to something and so sat in my car and waited for the birds to come to me.

n no time I had birds visiting the puddle and adjacent area.  I saw my first warbler of the year, an Orange-crowned, but it’s a year-round resident to at least some degree so this one probably wasn’t a harbinger of spring.

But let’s get to some of the photos…

This is a female Downy woodpecker, probably our most common woodpecker but sometimes difficult to photograph outside a controlled setting, i.e. , a yard with suet and hanging feeders.

Next a couple of Chestnut-backed chickadees.  There were many chickadees in this area.

There were also a lot of Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) in the area.  This one’s plumage is quite pale and is probably a female and/or first year bird.

And finally, as far as photos go, a Robin enjoying a dip in the puddle…

Monday, Feb 16 dawned clear with only a very high, thin cloud layer developing in mid-afternoon.  I had plans to photograph a couple of birds on the overlook but my plans didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.  But I put in the time and as often happens in such cases, the day worked out just fine.

My day started when I photographed a male House sparrow on the way up to the overlook.  The bird was in a nice setting but was otherwise unremarkable until I processed the photos.  I then noticed that the bird apparently had a tick or some other abnormality attached to its left cheek.  I have never noticed this in any other bird I have photographed.

As soon as I arrived at the overlook I heard singing and saw a Bewick’s wren sitting on the exposed limb of a bush.  I couldn’t find an angle to eliminate the small branch between the bird and I but nevertheless obtained some nice photos.  Considering the problem I have just finding one of these birds I was happy to obtain a photograph.

I then ran through three more species of sparrows at the overlook… Song (this photo is one I actually took in my yard during a break), Golden-crowned and Fox, pictured here in that order.

While I was photographing the birds pictured above, I noticed some movement in a dead madrone tree out from the parking lot.  I looked and saw that an accipiter had flown in.  I carefully snapped a couple of photos but had/have no hope of identifying the raptor.  It’s either a Sharp-shinned hawk or a Cooper’s hawk… they both look very much alike and I’ve given up even trying to guess between the two species.  However I have sent the photos to a friend who is a much more accomplished birder than I and I’m hoping to hear back from him regarding the identification.  In the meantime you can perform your own research!   :  )

Finally, upon ending the break I took at the house I scattered a little “habitat enhancer” in the yard in the hope of drawing out our Slate-colored junco.  We’ve had one over-winter at the house for the past 7-8 years, and I hadn’t obtained a good photo of one with my good camera and lens.  The bird is substantially shyer than our Oregon juncos and doesn’t interact well with its cousins, but at one point it emerged in the yard and stood very still on a rock for a minute or two… time enough for me to obtain some excellent photos of it.  So here is the Dark-eyed junco of the Slate-colored race!