As I believe I expressed in prior blogs, the arrival of spring migrants has passed us by. We’re seeing very few of the spring arrivals… most of them apparently arrived and passed through, so that many of my interesting and rarer photographic subjects are gone. But there are still plenty of birds in the yard and I’ve continued my photographic efforts.

Perhaps one of the more interesting developments is our sighting of California quail chicks we saw for the first time yesterday (June 2, 2020). Unfortunately I was unable to photograph the chicks. The parents are EXTREMELY protective of the young chicks and I can’t get anywhere near them at this stage of their development. The chicks are extremely small and only spend limited time barely out from the safety of our brush pile.

We still have all four of our hummingbird species/sexes. Here is a female Rufous hummingbird feeding on one of several salvias we have in the yard. I thought for several days that the males had already left, but discovered we still have at least one in the yard.

For a day or so we had a male Anna’s hummingbird trying not just to try to dominate the hummingbird feeder in the yard, but also the watercourse, salvia and all related environs.

While photographing the hummingbirds in the yard a male Northern flicker flew in to access our suet feeder.

We have a pair of Black-capped chickadees feeding young in one of our bird houses. It’s interesting to peruse the smorgasbord served by the parents. If you enlarge this photo you can see that the chickadee has a beakful of insects and worms.

And generally continuing our new arrivals theme, we have at least one male Red-winged blackbird making several trips daily to access our various bird feeders (sunflower seed, peanut and suet) and transport the food back to a nest located somewhere near the sewer treatment pond located about two blocks away. This is the only time of year we have visits from the blackbirds. My theory is that the birds can get food much more readily from our feeders than spending the time away from the nest hunting, so they make quick trips up the hill to our yard.

I’m going to try to summarize the spring migration that has occurred in our yard over the past few weeks.  

In general, the main migration seemed to begin in late April, with large numbers of migrants appearing on April 29 & 30.  With regard to warblers, Orange-crowned, Wilson’s and Yellow-rumped (Audubon’s race) provided the greatest numbers of visits. 

This is a male Yellow-rumped warbler, Audubon’s race.

This year, for I believe the first time, we had visits by the Myrtle race of Yellow-rumped warblers.  This first photo is of a female, the second photo is of a male.

There were several days of rain or cold when I didn’t spend much time in the yard and we didn’t seem to have that many visits.  But we then had two more days (May 4 & 5) of high migrant traffic. 

This season, in addition to the warblers listed above, we had confirmed/photographed visits from: 

• Townsend’s warbler (1 visit) 

• Black-throated gray warbler (1 visit)
• Pacific Slope flycatcher (2 days) 

• Warbling vireo (2 days) 

• Brown-headed cowbird (female; late arrival but now a daily visitor)
• Western tanager (male & female) 

• Black-headed grosbeak (male & female) 

• House wren (nesting) 

We thought we might have seen a MacGillivray’s warbler (twice) and female Yellow warbler (twice), but we couldn’t be sure of the identifications or obtain photographs.  

To bring things up to date, as of May 22 we seem to be getting only about one warbler visit per day.  The House wren that was in one of our nest boxes apparently fledged young. 

A pair of Red-breasted nuthatches raised a family of four young in the vicinity and the parents have been feeding them suet in the yard.  About a week ago one of the young ones landed on the lens of my camera, only about five inches from the front of my face, while I was photographing birds in the yard.  We have Black-capped chickadees currently occupying a nest box.  Another pair were discouraged from using a different nest box by a persistent male House sparrow that was unable to enter the box but was threatening to the nest-building process.  

Whew! I’m going to consider myself caught up and not visit the migration again!

I spent over four hours in the yard ready to photograph birds on Memorial Day. I took some nice photos of some of the usual yard birds.

I began the day photographing a female Bushtit which, uncharacteristically, made several efforts to take a bath in the watercourse. It kept being deterred by other larger birds, and while waiting it decided to take a “leaf bath” in an evergreen huckleberry that I had sprayed. This gave me lots of opportunities for photos of a bird that can be difficult to photograph. I use the term ‘uncharacteristically’ because only in the last week have either of our pair of Bushtits shown ANY interest in water, either for drinking or bathing.

My next interest was a juvenile White-crowned sparrow. It took two or three baths, again giving me ample opportunity for photos.

By this time I had spent about three and a half hours in the yard with not much to show for my time or efforts. That all changed just before 3:30pm when a Wilson’s warbler entered the yard. This has probably been our most common warbler during the spring migration but lately we have only been averaging about one warbler per day, so this was a welcome visitor.

The warbler had barely left the yard when I spotted an orange head in our Golden Chain tree (now no longer blooming) and I quickly prepared for the possible entry of a male Western tanager. I wasn’t disappointed. The bird first flew to a small Japanese maple and landed only about six feet from me! It then few back to a staging stick by the watercourse and I began trying to photograph it. I would lose track of the bird when switching between my viewfinder and looking over the top of the camera and kept being puzzled by the bird’s location. I then realized that there were TWO males around the watercourse!

While trying to photograph the males a female appeared at the head of the watercourse, and then I had a real delimma! I wanted photos of both sexes, so I then began to concentrate on the female.

The tanagers had barely left the yard when I noticed a Black-headed grosbeak sneaking a drink from a small hanging bird bath among some leaves. I began taking photos of it when I realized that there was a second male grosbeak in our hanging platform feeder!

Immediately after the grosbeaks left either another Wilson’s warbler entered the yard or the previous one returned. All of the action with the Wilson’s warbler(s), the tanagers and the grosbeaks happened in a 15-minute periods but it cost me over four hours of my time… and that doesn’t include processing and writing this blog!

One afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was sitting outside occupied with photographing spring migrants.  I use a chair that is erect and a monopod to hold my camera so that I look directly over the camera/lens to observe activity in the yard.  If I want to photograph a bird very little motion is required to drop my eye to my viewfinder to compose photos.  I was in such a position when a Red-breasted nuthatch landed just in front of my camera, on my lens, and proceeded to waltz to the far end of the lens while I watched with my face only inches away.  Unfortunately there was no opportunity for a photograph!  (A week later we had a family (four fledglings) frequenting one of our suet feeders and I presume it was one of the young that had landed on my lens.)

On May 19, 2020, I was in the house when motion outside caught my attention.  I thought I had seen a rather large gray bird fly into a grove of fir trees at the edge of the yard and there was some activity by crows, so I thought that we might have another visit from a Great Horned owl which had been here a couple of weeks previously.  I went outside and looked through the fir trees but the crows had dispersed and I couldn’t locate anything of interest.  

That evening I was washing dinner dishes and looked out one of the kitchen windows to see a large accipiter sitting rather low to the ground adjacent to our brush pile.  I grabbed my camera and tried to sneak into position to get a photo using the loud disturbance of a passing car to help distract from my movements, but my tactics didn’t work and the accipiter flew quickly into the same grove of fir trees into which it had disappeared earlier in the day.  I could hear our pair of California quail vocalizing from the safety of our brush pile.  (Incidentally, the brush pile is ‘engineered’ with welded livestock wire for just such purposes.)  

So now, with migration falling off, we (and the birds) have to contend with a very efficient predator in the yard.  My postings may suffer!  

And now a note pertaining to site administration,,, 

In the past visitors have been able to sign up on the site to receive emails when I post a new blog.   I have no idea how many visitors have signed up for this service, but recently I had some trouble loading images on my site and contacted tech support for the host.  Tech support disabled several features on my site which I don’t think had anything to do with the image problem. When I discovered that the notification app had been inactivated, I reactivated it but am unsure whether or not my distribution list was retained.  So subscribers may not be getting updates to my site.  

In a somewhat related problem, two friends who subscribed to my blog indicated that they had sent comments concerning posts.  I was puzzled because I hadn’t seen their comments.  In questioning one of the subscribers I discovered that the comments had been sent in a reply to the email notifications, and I don’t receive those replies!  So I have no idea how many people may have sent comments regarding my blog that I would have acknowledged had I received them.  

I try to acknowledge almost all meaningful emails I receive.  If you want to communicate with me the best way is to use my personal email address.  If you don’t know my email address leave a message on my site and I’ll contact you.  But don’t respond to email notification of a new blog post and expect me to see it!  

I apologize for all these difficulties but my interest, and any expertise I have, is directed at observing and photographing birds and offering associated products to the greater birding community.  I produce a web site at my expense that is free of advertising.  All of my knowledge concerning software pertaining to my blog is self-taught, and I prefer to spend my time posting bird photos and observations (which in itself is extremely time-consuming) rather than learning the technical intricacies of web design and maintenance.   

I wouldn’t want you to go without a photo, so here is a photo of female Rufous hummingbird showing interest in an evergreen huckleberry bush…

Skagit Wild Bird Supply on Memorial Highway in Mount Vernon has been providing those of us who feed birds with quality seed and birding products for many years.  Several friends have asked me recently if the store is open during the COVID-19 crisis.

The good news is that the store is open and you can still purchase bird seed and supplies there.  I recently purchased bird seed from the store and found that they have implemented some of the best procedures I have found in local businesses during the COVID-19 crisis.  The store only allows entry to employees.  You can call ahead with orders or call from their parking lot (360 424-5575) and the store will deliver the order to your vehicle.  At this time the hours are limited to Wednesday through Saturday from 10am until  3pm.  Payment is limited to credit and debit cards. 

The bird pictured above? A female Western tanager.