I spent a little time in the yard this afternoon (8/10/2019) hoping for something interesting, but it was not to be. (I did have two sightings of a Brown creeper but the bird was not close enough for a photo.) My posts have been relatively few and far between due to the lack of interesting birds in the yard. Rather than post photos of the same birds over and over I just haven’t done any posts.

I did have one very brief sighting on 8/5/2019… a male Wilson’s warbler very briefly visited the yard and I got a few photos. Unfortunately, while the bird visited two of our major water features a dead madrone leaf in each of our water features formed a poor background for photos. Here’s the best photo I obtained…

Here are a few of the photos I took today (8/10/2019)…

The next two photos are of Pine siskins and the reason I included these photos is to illustrate the difference in plumage among the species. This first photo may be of a juvenile siskin but siskins with similar coloration are in evidence for the winter. Note the relative lack of yellow coloring on the wing.

This second Pine siskin displays an unusual patch of yellow on the wing. I’ve seen others with similar patches but they are rare.

Here is what is probably a juvenile male Rufous hummingbird. The adult males left our yard for their migration several weeks ago. The Rufous hummingbirds migrate north up the west coast in the spring, but cross over the Cascades for their migration south. This bird has a long way to go and needs to get going!

This next species is an introduced species and seems to be outbreeding the native Mourning doves. I recently have had as many as six in the yard at one time. Note the black line along the base of the bird’s neck.

For at least the second summer in a row we’ve managed to retain a pair of Dark-eyed juncos. In the winter they can be one of our most numerous yard birds, but in the spring these birds leave to breed at higher elevations. A few can be found in Washington Park (where I once located a nest under a Sword fern) and on Mount Erie. This year the breeding pair successfully raised at least a pair of young, but in past years they have been parasitized by Brown-headed cowbirds.

Summer is now in full swing. We have many birds in the yard but most of them are House sparrows, American goldfinches, House finches or Pine siskins. So I thought it might be a good time for a couple of excursions.

My first excursion was to Fir Island on July 30 where, to my surprise, I found the Black phoebe, seriously out of range, still at Wylie Slew after two years or so.

My second expedition, on July 30, was to the Samish Flats and associated highlands areas. There I found Barn swallows feeding juveniles.

While photographing the Barn swallows, this single Tree swallow added itself to the mix…

While I obtained some interesting photos, I didn’t see enough interesting birds to repeat my excursions anytime soon. I’ll probably stick to the yard for the rest of the month.

I find after logging into my site this morning that things appear rather radically different. My site (BlueHost) uses WordPress software for development purposes. The framework with which I was familiar has been replaced with updated software which is not familiar to me. If you’re reading this it means that I have successfully made the transition!

After grousing about the lack of species diversity in our yard in my post of 7/22/2019, that afternoon I had a very brief visit from a warbler. Unfortunately it made only the briefest of appearances. I’m fairly sure that it was a male Wilson’s warbler, but I wasn’t able to detect a black cap on the bird’s head. Yellow warblers, the only other realistic possibility, are too rare to seriously consider. (There is no photo!)

On 7/23/2019 I had just finished removing string algae from the watercourse, refreshing bird baths and filling feeders when a pair of Cedar waxwings, our first in about a year, flew into the madrone trees on the outskirts of the yard. I quickly went inside for my camera but when I returned they had left, so sadly, again no photos!

Digressing a bit from the yard, on 7/22/2019, in my walk in Washington Park, I found a Barred owl and obtained photos with my iPhone. The owl was less than 15′ away and was being harassed by a Douglas squirrel which ventured to within about two feet of the owl. (Sorry about the quality of the image but it was taken with my iPhone!)

When I returned home that morning I had an email from a neighbor who had seen and photographed what she identified as a Saw-Whet owl on our property! I immediately went out to try to find it but was unsuccessful in doing so.

So that’s the yard news, but the reason I’m creating this post is that I had a good photography day in the yard yesterday despite the lack of interesting visitors. So here are some of the better photos I took…

I might mention that we had at least four male House finches in the yard at one time.

And now for a special friend who sometimes visits while I am monitoring the yard for bird activity…

It appears that I have successfully navigated the updated software. There are some improvements…. I just have to get used to them. It appears there is an improved way of selecting photos to post. This is my first attempt, and apparent success, at posting an image from my iPhone to my web site.

It’s been slow photographing any really interesting birds in the yard this summer.  We’ve had some really dry weather and our water features, especially the watercourse with flowing water, should be attractants.  I’ve spent a great deal of time in the yard but I haven’t seen a warbler in the yard in about three weeks, only brief sightings of a couple of tanagers when they first arrived and no crossbills!  I’m worried about what might be happening to our rarer, and more interesting birds this year.  On the other hand, we have perhaps had a record number of common birds bringing young to the yard.

On Sunday, July 21, I made a very brief and short (across the alley) foray out of the yard for a little photography.  While I was setting up a Pine siskin came slowly hopping along the ground with long pauses between movements…. very atypical siskin behavior.   I watched the bird for the better part of an hour as it slowly worked its way up into some bushes where it should have been safe for the night.  It didn’t appear injured and it was eating a few seeds as it went but I was puzzled by its behavior.

While I was waiting for the possibility of a robin or flicker visiting an Oregon grape bush I was observing, a covey of California quail happened by.  The rest of the photos here are members of the covey.  This is the adult male and chief lookout for the group.

The adult female…

And one of about six chicks in this covey…

While I was photographing members of this covey I saw yet another covey enter our yard. It’s been a good year for quail reproduction!

In my recent three posts, I have tried to present some of the birds, and a very few of the photos, I took while in Central Texas in early May, 2019.  During the time i was processing those photos, and organizing posts, I continued taking photos in my own yard.  It was not unusual for me to take over 200 photos in a single day.  I should be more selective!

I’ve been VERY disappointed in the number of some of the usual spring visitors (warblers, tanagers, waxwings, crossbills) we’ve had this year.   But I’ve had two unusual visitors to the yard recently.

The first was a small flycatcher of the genus empidonax.  It appeared in a Japanese maple located almost immediately next to me (on 6/23/2019), where I recognized it as a flycatcher.  It flew around the yard for about ten minutes, its chief activity seeming to be chasing American goldfinches and chickadees, not around the yard, but OUT of the yard!  I managed to get several photos but unfortunately, the flycatchers of this genus can be reliably identified only by their vocalizations.  It wouldn’t heve mattered if it had vocalized… I wouldn’t have been unable to have identified it anyway.

My second unusual visitor (on 7/6/2019) was a Hutton’s vireo, a bird that is known for closely resembling a Ruby-crowned kinglet.  The kinglets are mainly winter visitors so I was aware of the possibility of the bird being a vireo, but it wasn’t until I processed the photos that I could confirm the vireo identification.  I managed to take quite a few photos, but I only got one fairly good one that I could use for identification.

On July 9, 2019, I looked out of the house to see two juvenile Brown-headed cowbirds around the watercourse.  They seemed to bee wanting to identify with a male American robin in the watercourse, but the robin seemed unwilling to be associated with the cowbirds.

Back on a another more positive note, we have at least one family of Black-headed grosbeaks visiting the yard.  This first photo is of a male.  The lack of color on the second bird probably indicates that it is a juvenile.

This final photo is of a fawn, one of several in the neighborhood that, if not already so engaged, will grow to menace the plants in our yard.