My wife hosted her women’s discussion group on Friday, March 18, 2022, so it was an opportunity (if not obligation) to hit the road. I elected to head south (towards Fir Island) instead of north towards the Samish Flats, and it turned out to be a very good decision.

I first chose to tour March Point and along the way encountered a bird that I had never photographed in my 20+ years here… a Brant! Every Brant I had ever observed had been part of a flotilla located several hundred yards offshore. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that while still “in the field” I had to send a friend a phone photo for an identification. I now have several really good photos of a Brant.

Next, it was off to Fir Island. I encountered thousands of Snow geese in a field along Best Road but they were not close to the road and there was no good place to pull over. There were more on Fir Island.

I encountered a flock of White-crowned sparrows at the Jensen F&W Access…

While photographing flying Snow geese I suddenly saw a Bald eagle approaching and just had time to direct the camera as it flew by. It was a lucky shot… this may be my best ever flying eagle photograph!

After lunch at a local tavern I returned to Maupin Road to find two very large groups of Snow geese in fields on either side of the road, and there was an almost continuous transfer from one field to the other. I positioned my vehicle so that could use my door window as a rest and spent considerable time photographing flying geese.

Technical note: I had been frustrated since getting my 500mm F5.6 lens that I was unable to get the same quality photos of flying birds that I had obtained with my 200-400mm F4.0 lens. As an experiment I moved my shutter speed from 1/1000 of a second to 1/1600 of a second. I’m not sure why it would have made a difference between the two lenses, but I found I was now getting better photos.

I was sitting in the yard just after noon on Monday, March 14, 2022, watching birds when an accipiter flew into the yard. I sneaked back into the house for my camera but when I reemerged the accipiter flew. An hour or so later it returned from the same direction from which it disappeared earlier. Unfortunately, when it returned it landed on a feeder pole instead of a natural perch. Here are some of the photos I managed to take on the accipiter’s second visit.

Several years ago, on another accipiter’s visit to the yard, I managed to make a contact who bands raptors in Seattle. I sent him these photos and here is his response:

Young adult Cooper’s Hawk, just finishing molt into adult plumage, so will be 2 years old later this Spring. Looks like he/she is courting another Cooper’s Hawk in the neighborhood…..the fluffed up white undertail coverts is seen in Spring courtship.

On March 11, 2022, we welcomed our first spring migrant, a female Rufous hummingbird. She remained around the yard all day, at one point sharing a very small, three-port hummingbird feeder with male and female Anna’s hummingbirds. She was still in the yard the following morning although much more scarce during the day. (Sorry about including the feeder in the photo, but you often have to take what you van get!)

On the following day (Mar 12, 2022) our first male Rufous hummingbird visited the yard, but he only made a very brief visit to the feeder, made a quick tour of the yard and then disappeared for the rest of the day.

Looking back over my spring arrival records, I see the earliest arrival for our yard was on March 2 (2021) and our latest arrival date was on March 27 (2008). And yes, they have been trending towards earlier arrivals.

The female returned on Mar 12 but spent much less time visiting the feeder. At one point I saw two Anna’s females sharing the feeder, a very unusual occurrence.

The hummingbirds are draining both of my small feeders in about a day, so it won’t be long before I graduate to a couple of larger feeders. I look forward to the time our salvia, pruned for the winter, recover and begin blooming and offer the opportunity for photos of the hummingbirds in flight.

I spent considerable time in the yard both days (Mar 11 & 12) photographing other species of birds. Our very shy male Varied thrush disappeared for two days but was back Mar 12 and I obtained some good photos. He was joined in the yard by one or more cousins, American robins. It amazes me how the robins can be so proficient at grubbing for worms! After short periods of very successful worming the Robin would take a leisurely bath in the 45-degree water!

We have a number of sparrow species in the yard. As I probably mentioned in a prior post, we are absolutely overrun with Dark-eyed Oregon juncos… and are still hosting our leucistic male for the second season in a row! I often wish for more species of birds in the yard but the juncos provide so many opportunities for beautiful photographs.

We also have several Spotted towhees and Golden-crowned sparrows, a couple of Song sparrows, at least one Fox sparrow (not pictured) and a complement (if I deign to call it that), of House sparrows (also not pictured). A few days ago we had a White-crowned sparrow in the yard for a day.

I haven’t posted to my website in several weeks, mainly due to computer problems which are yet to be fully resolved. My internal hard drive began to fail and I was fortunate to have been able to replace it before it completely failed. I’ve learned an important lesson about the importance of backups and am in the process of creating both an on-site backup and a cloud storage backup on the advice of a computer guru/friend. 

But while my computer activities (processing photos and posting to my blog) were compromised the situation didn’t keep me from talking photos, although my photography situation has been degraded by the lack of interesting visitors to the yard and the inclement weather conditions. I’ve accumulated a backlog of photos and as I process them I’ll attempt to use them to stretch towards better weather and the arrival of spring migrants. 

I’ll begin with a juvenile Cooper’s hawk which toured the yard on Feb 2, 2022.  I realized I wouldn’t be able to sneak into the yard for photos and had to take photos from inside the house. The extra glass degrades the photos to some extent but I was happy that I was able to obtain some photos. 

Another visitor I had to photograph through the glass was a Red-breasted Sapsucker that visited our yard for a cold bath on Feb 18.  It was the first one we had seen since the small influx we had in Dec. 

While I’m on the subject of yard birds I’ll mention that we have finally, for about the past couple of weeks, had a single male Varied thrush visit the yard on a daily basis.  (It was missing on Mar 8.) The bird is super wary and I have to have a lot of time and patience to obtain photos. In past winters we have had Varied thrushes for most of the winter, but this year even the snows failed to bring the thrushes down from the mountains and into our yard.

Here’s a photo I took of the thrush on Mar 6.

And finally I want to close with some advice… I can’t emphasize how important it is to back up important information (photos, communications, genealogy, etc.) on your computer!!!  Hard drives don’t last forever!

While I’ve embarked on several excursions to the local area to photograph waterfowl this fall/winter, I’ve had very little luck finding subjects for my photography. On the afternoon of January 16 I decided to give it another try without having much hope of any success. My plan was to tour March Point but I only made it as far as the Cap Sante Marina. There I encountered a small flotilla (maybe about eight) of female Buffleheads diving for food.

Over the next hour or so they were joined by several other species. This is one of about three male goldeneyes that eventually joined the flotilla… I think this is a Common goldeneye but its winter plumage makes it difficult for me to make a positive identification.

While I was engaged in photographing members of the flotilla a pair of Red-breasted mergansers sneaked up on me from behind and I at first missed the opportunity for really good photos, but they eventually returned.

Eventually two or three female Hooded mergansers joined the group…

I took 285 photos which included all sorts of combinations of the birds…

Here are a female Red-breasted merganser, two female Hooded mergansers and three female Buffleheads…

Here are a male Common goldeneye and a female Red-breasted merganser...

And here are a male Common goldeneye, female Red-breasted merganser and a female Bufflehead…

But wait… there was more! As I was leaving the dock a male Belted kingfisher landed on a boat in front of me, capping a great afternoon of photography!