We returned from a National Geographic/Lindblad cruise Sunday evening, September 1, 2019. More about that in future posts.

It didn’t take long for me to get back into yard birding. I had just returned from my morning walk when I looked out the window and saw activity by some large creature in our brush pile. My binoculars and camera were still packed, but I retrieved them quickly and returned to the window in time to see an accipiter emerge from the brush pile. I successfully sneaked out of the house and watched the accipiter making repeated trips into and out of the brush pile. I was finally able to obtain a relatively unobstructed view of the bird’s head and took a couple of photos, one of which appears below.

In mid-afternoon the accipiter returned to the yard and was again trying to flush birds from the brush pile. A California quail flew over the house, followed by two others which flew across the street. The final quail I saw fly headed across the street followed by the accipiter… I couldn’t see the outcome.

The brush pile is a cage made out of livestock welded wire with 4″ square openings. I would be rather surprised if the accipiter could penetrate it, especially with all the branches jammed into the “cage”. I suspect that the accipiter wasn’t so much interested in getting into the brush pile as flushing prey from it .

On Friday, 8/23/2019, I was in the kitchen and looked out the window to see a relatively drab bird bathing in the watercourse. I was fairly sure it was a warbler so ran and retrieved my camera and eased into my photography post. The bird flew but I was able to take a few photos of it in our madrone grove. (Note the white on the tail.)

The bird returned to the watercourse and I was able to get several good photos of it. It wasn’t until I processed the photos that I was able to make a tentative identification. (It didn’t help that all the photos I obtained were taken after the bird had already started bathing!) I believe it is a juvenile Yellow-rumped warbler. The Audubon’s race is much more common in our yard, but Sibley notes that the juveniles of both races (Audubon’s and Myrtle’s) are similar. (If anyone has other ideas I would be glad to hear them!)

Since we had almost no warblers in the yard in the summer months, I hope that two warbler species in two days might signal the beginning of the fall migration.

Abandoning my effort to get an afternoon nap, I took my camera to the yard a little after 3pm (8/22/2019). For the past couple of days I’ve been trying to catch up on my photo processing, dealing with photos taken all the way back to March and so haven’t spent much time in the yard. But today my timing was exemplary… within about ten minutes a Yellow warbler showed up and for about the next ten minutes utilized just about every staging object we have in the yard. Eighty-five photos later, my Yellow warbler inventory was overflowing!

At the risk of being boring, I’m going to try to demonstrate a little advice on birding photography. As I’ve mentioned in many previous blogs, we have a watercourse set up in our yard to attract birds. (Water will attract more species of birds than food will.) To attract birds to the watercourse, and also assist with my photography, I have set up what I might refer to as “staging objects”… sticks, rocks and bushes that ease birds’ transition to the watercourse from the ground and surrounding trees. These staging objects, meant to mimic a natural environment, are not only attractive perching places for the birds but they also give me multiple opportunities to photograph the same bird “in different environments” in that the backgrounds/settings/postures change even if the bird doesn’t.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I usually retain about 60% of the photographs I take (for many different reasons which I won’t go into here). I suspect that most photographers would probably only retain a few of the better photographs and dump the rest. But I’m going to try to illustrate my dilemma, caused in some part by my successful sculpting of the environment.

Here is where the boring aspect of this post rears its head. ALL of the following photographs, save the hummingbirds at the bottom, were taken of the same bird’s single trip to the water feature. (For the record, the bird is a Black-capped chickadee.) You can probably find a favorite among the photos, but how easily would you be able to discard ANY of the others?

This female Anna’s hummingbird may choose to spend the winter with us.

And finally (regular readers may remember there is always a “finally”), here’s a Rufous hummingbird feeding on salvia in the yard adjacent to the watercourse. I think the bird is a female but I can’t rule out that it might be a first year male. (Such is the state of my birding skills!) This bird has a long journey ahead, and it’s time to get moving!

If you’ve read my recent blog posts you’ve heard me repeatedly grouse (pun intended) about the lack of more interesting birds in the yard. Today (8/11/2019) I made some progress!

First, a male Wilson’s warbler entered the yard and, unlike my last such visitor, this one utilized several staging perches, including a madrone tree. He gave me many opportunities for photographs, two of which I’m displaying below.

Later in the afternoon I discovered a juvenile Hutton’s vireo, the second I’ve seen in the yard this summer. It was a lucky identification of this bird because there were almost a dozen Pine siskins flying around the yard as well as American goldfinches, House finches and House sparrows. (Note the downward curve at the end of the beak, something you are unlikely to note with the naked eye or even with binoculars.)

And just to fill up the post, I’m going to add a few more of the 188 photos I took in the yard today.