On April 21, 2019, Easter Sunday, I noticed an unremarkable sparrow in the yard that I couldn’t identify without using binoculars.  Once I saw the bird through my binoculars I realized immediately that it was a Lincoln’s sparrow, a species I had logged in our yard only once before many years ago.  In fact I have worried from time to time that I may have misidentified my original sighting.  But in this case I was sure of my identification and had pictures to confirm my identification. 

I’ve often preached the value of factors other than appearance in making identifications.  When I opened our window shades before good light the next morning, I saw a single bird foraging in the yard.  It was not one of the sparrow species which are common at this time of year, nor was it one of the other FIVE species of sparrows (Spotted towhee, Dark-eyed junco, House sparrow, Golden-crowned sparrow, White-crowned sparrow) which had been in our yard the previous day.  (Two week’s previously I could have also added a Song sparrow and a Fox sparrow, but they have since moved on.)   The only sparrow foraging in the yard before first light was the Lincoln’s sparrow!  

On a somewhat different subject, on April 23 I was birding in the yard and saw my first confirmed arrival of a Brown-headed cowbird, a male (no photo).  I also had several visits by one or more Orange-crowned warblers.  On one visit with the warbler bathing in the watercourse, a male Yellow-rumped Audubon warbler flew into the watercourse and began bathing within a foot of the Orange-crowned warbler.  As they flew from the watercourse three more Orange-crowned warblers flew into the yard!  

So I have to conclude that the spring migration is on!  (And as of Wednesday, April 24th afternoon, the Lincoln’s sparrow was still with us.)  

Sunday, April 7, 2019, began as a sort of humdrum birding day.  Things were so bad I started alternating my birding with yard chores.  Here are a couple of House sparrows… the male and an unusually good photo of a female.

Continuing with the sparrow theme, here is a photo of a Song sparrow, probably the only one we have.

Things got a little more interesting when this male Downy woodpecker came to the suet feeder and then took its time exiting the yard, giving me the opportunity for a few photos.

A Bewick’s wren has been visiting the suet feeder this past winter and it’s having a difficult time giving it up!

And this is when things began to get interesting!  All last season I only saw hummingbirds of any species visit the watercourse twice, which is in sharp contrast to prior years when we  had hummingbirds visit the watercourse multiple times on a daily basis.  This afternoon a female Rufous hummingbird first came down to bathe…

And then a male came down for a bath!

I’m anxious for warblers to arrive but my records indicate that most won’t arrive until May.  However, hope springs eternal and finally, after 5pm I saw movement in one of our madrone trees.  I realized almost immediately that it wasn’t one of the American goldfinches that are now so prevalent… it was a male Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon’s race) in full breeding plumage!  The bird eyed both primary water sources in the yard and then left the yard after only a couple of minutes.  I could so early have missed it.

And one bit of bad news.  Early this morning I was on our west patio when a couple of birds flew into our very large madrone tree.  I didn’t have my binoculars but was trying to ID the birds with rather obstructivee backlighting.  Suddenly the birds flew, first a female, then a male followed by another female.  I realized by their flight patterns that I was watching three Brown-headed cowbirds… our first recorded arrival this year.  In past years, in our immediate vicinity they have parasitized White-crowned sparrows, Spotted towhees and Dark-eyed juncos.

We’re already starting to see some of the early migrant species here on Cap Sante.  Rufous hummingbirds have arrived (male 3/11, female 3/19) and five Turkey vultures cruised over the house on 3/21.  Bushtits have recently paired and we are no longer seeing the large flocks visit the suet feeder.  We had American goldfinches for most of the winter, which is unusual for the yard, but now their numbers have increased substantially and they are probably the most numerous birds in the yard.

We’re already seeing some of our winter visitors exit.  A substantial proportion of our Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) have left as has apparently our single member of the Slate-colored race.  These birds breed at slightly higher elevations, although we had at least one breeding pair last summer.  We still have a Varied thrush or two in the yard (2 females on 3/26) although they have been less visible for the past couple of days.  They’ll soon be returning to the mountains for their breeding season.  And we still have as many as ten Golden-crowned sparrows in the yard, but they will all have flown north in a few more weeks.

I’m looking forward to some of our spring arrivals… warblers, grosbeaks, tanagers and hopefully a few rarities such as crossbills and waxwings, but that probably won’t begin happening until sometime in May.  In this time of transition I spent a few hours in the yard on March 21, the first day of Spring.  I tallied 26 species in and from the yard.  Here is a list of the birds I observed:

Male and female California quail…

Male and female Varied thrushes, which continue to occupy most of my photographic efforts due to their relative rarity and beauty…

Fox sparrow…

Song sparrows…

White-crowned sparrow…

Golden-crowned sparrows…

A male American goldfinch, transitioning to breeding plumage…

Male and female Bushtits…

And finally, a Brown creeper…

Since mid-March, when the weather improved significantly, I have had some nice birding sessions in the yard.  There are even a few migrants that are beginning to show up, but not the ones in which I am most interested.  I’ve gotten some good photos, but in most cases they are birds whose photos you have seen recently.

We’ve had American goldfinches off and on almost all winter, which is unusual for our yard.  And since the goldfinches are here rather early, we are getting to see the birds morph into their breeding plumage.  This male has yet to develop its black crown, but you can see the it’s on the way.

We have also managed to host part of the Cap Sante California quail population through the winter for the first time in more than ten years.  The group that visits our yard consists of 4-5 females and two males.  We’re hoping for a bumper crop later in the season.

Red-winged blackbirds have returned to the yard, a sign that they have begun their breeding season in the wastewater treatment ponds down the hill.  It’s my theory that the birds visit our yard because it’s a quick trip for food, reducing the amount of time they have to leave the nest to forage.  Pictured is a female, a bird whose identity often puzzles beginning birders because they look nothing like the male.

In another month or so our Golden-crowned sparrows will have morphed into their breeding plumage and will be leaving the area to breed to the north.

And one of our most significant arrivals, first observed here on March 11, was a male Rufous hummingbird.  I’m unsure whether or not that first bird is pictured here, and I’m also uncertain whether or not this is the same bird in both photographs, although both photos were taken on the same day  (3/16).

On the afternoon of March 14, 2019, while photographing birds in my yard, I received notification via email that John Kelly (of Austin, Texas) had died.  It was time I spent on various bird counts with John that inspired me to more serious birding, and in my mind I always gave him credit for my initial interest in birding.  

I was raised in a rural setting west of Austin.  My father was a casual birder and I had an aunt who was an avid birder, but as a teenager I had only minimal interest.  I left the rural environment in 1969 and any serious interest in birding didn’t happen until the late 1980’s.  My wife and I attended Travis Audubon Society film tours and by the early 1990’s my interest in birding had been somewhat rekindled.  

Sometime in the early 1990’s I decided to participate in a Christmas bird count, and I reported for duty early one morning at a fast food restaurant on US183.  This would have been at one of the early Balcones Canyonland Christmas Bird Counts.  John Kelly chose me, a neophyte birder, to accompany him on the count, a pairing that occurred for all subsequent Austin area bird counts in which I participated during the 1990’s.  It was happenstance for which I would be thankful for the rest of my life!  I’ve  tried to reason why John chose me for all the counts and I thought that it may have been due to two factors… that I had a four-wheel-drive vehicle and that I was willing to record the sightings and leave him free to bird!  Whatever the reason, I benefitted a lot more from the pairing than he did!  

I found John extremely knowledgable concerning birds, but I never considered him a teacher.  However it was difficult to be in his company and not absorb some of his knowledge.  John and I had some interesting birding experiences, a few of which I’ll relate here.    

There was the Austin Christmas Bird Count when John couldn’t identify a bird vocalization I didn’t even notice when birding below our house on the Bouldin Creek Greenbelt.  After a quick search John found and identified a Chestnut-sided warbler.  (Keep in mind this was a Christmas Bird Count!)  

On another occasion John identified a Louisiana water thrush working along the edge of Bouldin Creek below our house, the only one we ever saw there. 

I was with John on the year Austin counted more Great-tailed grackles than any other locale for one of the counts, a dubious distinction!    

John and I were on another Balcones Canyonland bird count when we stopped at a creek that crossed the road to look for a Green kingfisher.  While John looked up the creek on one side of the road I began to explore the other side of the road.  I was suddenly startled by an American woodcock that flushed from grass along the road.  When John returned to the road he looked dubious when I related my discovery.  Fortunately I had noted where the bird landed, and John flushed it again and identified it for the count!  

One spring John was leading a birding hike at Balcones Canyonland hoping to see Black-capped vireos.  Everyone in the group was looking in one direction and I turned and looked behind the group.  There, at some distance, was a towhee-like bird that I couldn’t identify.  I called John’s attention to the bird which soon disappeared into the brush.  John studied the bird for the short time it was visible and was unable to identify it.  He surmised it was probably some Mexican species that had found its way into the area.  That was the only bird we ever saw that John couldn’t identify!  

I found the bird counts fascinating, and as I’ve told people many times since, I liken them to an Easter egg hunt!  I’ve often elaborated on the similarities, but in the interest of time and space I won’t elaborate here.  But the bottom line is the serendipity of the process… you just never know what you might find.  

Without trying to embellish my accomplishments, I want to briefly relate what John unknowingly got started and what his inspiration has meant for the birding world.  

My wife and I moved from Austin to Anacortes, Washington, in April of 2001.  I never saw John after our move, although we did come close on one occasion.  My wife, who is also a birder, and I always included a birding component in all of our travels.  Many years ago my wife and I visited the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge (in California) late in the afternoon.  The refuge was about to close so we elected to make a quick drive through the refuge before visiting the headquarters.  We entered the headquarters just before it closed, and found the last name on the visitors’ log was… John Kelly from Austin!  

Upon arriving in Anacortes I almost immediately met Ivar Dolph, at that time the President of the Skagit Audubon Society.    I mentioned to him that I had developed an outline for a beginning birding course during my waning days in Austin.  By the fall of 2001 I was teaching birding courses for beginning birders under the auspices of the Skagit Audubon Society, which I did for several years.  In 2007 the Anacortes Senior College came into existence and the education director for Skagit Audubon arranged for me to teach my birding course at the college, which I have done several times over the years. 

Meanwhile my interest in birding photography bloomed with the introduction of digital camera technology.  I now have an inventory over 60,000 birding photos taken all the way from the Pacific northwest to Texas.  I maintain a birding blog (wingsoverskagit.com) featuring selected photos and observations.  A few of my images, printed on canvas, adorn the walls of one our local restaurants.  My wife and I have landscaped our yard to facilitate birding photography.  I have developed an absolutely undeserved reputation as an expert birder among friends and acquaintances.  I’ve given birding talks to garden clubs, neighborhood groups and service clubs.  In short, I’ve been somewhat successful at advancing interest in birding.  And the birding world  owes all of this to the inspiration originally sparked by John Kelly.  

When I received the news of John’s passing I was sitting in the yard photographing birds.  As I mulled over these memories of John a Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon’s race), which is usually a fairly unusual winter visitor, entered the yard and investigated our watercourse.  (We had an unusual influx of the species several weeks previously, but they had disappeared.)  The warbler never landed for a bath or drink, but it lit on several staging objects around the watercourse, giving me ample opportunities for photographs.  So, John, along with my memories, these photos are for you.