On Sunday, November 11, 2018, I made a fortuitous discovery on my travels around the area I term the Skagit Flats.  I discovered a small clump of trees with an understory of brush… mainly blackberry bushes.  The trees had some kind of small fruits with which I wasn’t familiar, but I later determine the trees were probably Northwest crabapples.  (If you have other ideas as to what this tree is please let me know!) 

But the reason I was so interested in the thicket was that it was full of birds.  The birds were all what I would term ordinary, but the photographic opportunities were definitely not ordinary.  I’m going to list the species I saw there and then display a few photos and a story or two about my experiences.  

• Blackbird, Red-winged 
• Starling, European 
• Sparrow, Song 
• Sparrow, Golden-crowned 
• Sparrow, Lincoln’s 
• Towhee, Spotted 
• Goldfinch, American 
• Wren, Bewick’s 
• Hummingbird, Anna’s 
• Kinglet, Ruby-crowned (male) 
• accipiter 
• Harrier, Northern (male) 
• Hawk, Rough-legged 
• swans 

So I spent a couple of hours on that Sunday photographing the birds in the thicket.  I obtained some remarkable photographs, so I returned on Monday to see if I could repeat my success.  

When I arrived at the area on Monday, November 12, I found NO birds in the thicket.  I waited about five minutes and there was no movement, so I decided to try ‘pishing’.  I had just begun my first phrase when I was startled by an accipiter which immediately flew from the far side of the thicket to my side, took one look at me and left the area!  That explained why there were no birds in the thicket!

I realized that it would probably be awhile before there would be any chance of the birds returning, so I took an extended drive around the flats and returned maybe an hour later… and the birds were back.  I began taking more photos but about ten minutes later the accipiter returned.  The birds fled but this time I waited things out and the birds gradually began to return and I returned to my photography.  

Something in a field caught my eye and I observed that a male Northern harrier had landed on a plant stalk.  I obtained several photos but none were of good quality due to the distance involved.   

Immediately after the harrier flew a Rough-legged hawk moved into the same area and briefly hovered over the field.  I obtained some fairly good photos of it since the camera’s focus wasn’t handicapped by receding ground.  

So without further storytelling, here are a few of the photos I obtained… 

Male Ruby-crowned kinglet…

Song sparrow(s)…

Male Spotted towhee…

Male House finch dining on the aforementioned Northwest crabapple…

Juvenile White-crowned sparrow…

Male House finch…

Female Anna’s hummingbird…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to my blog.  In October my wife and I made a trip to north Texas to visit relatives.  Thankfully I didn’t drag my photographic gear along for the ride.  We left sterling weather here in Anacortes for days of heavy rain in Texas.

Added to my gap in posting has been our weather here since we returned.  There’s a lot less light, shorter days and less to photograph.  Here’s a “catch-up” posting of what I have been able to glean over the past month.

Kinglets of both species (this a Golden-crowned) continue to utilize the watercourse and bird baths.  

If I haven’t mentioned it before, there’s ben a return of one or more Dark-eyed juncos of the Slate-colored race, but if there is more than one they are never in the yard at the same time.  I took this photo of an apparent female on 10/6/2018.

For comparison, here’s a photo of a male I took on 10/30/2018 and it’s obviously not the same bird, so I guess we have had at least two here this fall.

This was about our last White-crowned sparrow we had in the yard… they’ve been gone for a couple of weeks now.  We had at least two pair that nested in the area this past summer, but one pair raised a Brown-headed cowbird.

This rare visitor (a Mourning dove) to the yard appeared 10/8/2018, our first visit from one in several years.  At the end of the summer we had several Eurasian Collared doves visiting the yard but the slate was apparently wiped clean by a Peregrine falcon that visited the neighborhood.

This Cooper’s hawk continues to visit the yard.  I took this photo on 10/21 and I was alerted by a neighbor that (presumaby the same hawk) was perched in a madrone tree in our yard as recently as yesterday (11/1/2018).  I was able to view it but it was late in the afternoon, raining and not in a location where it could be successfully photographed.

A little warning here!  If you believe in reincarnation, you don’t want to return as a crab and risk the possibility of being snagged by a gull!  It’s a gruesome way to die!

This crow is lobbying to be cut in for a snack, and it finally succeeded in snatching a leg and taking it to a boat for a meal.

Belted kingfishers are difficult to photograph as they are extremely alert and wary.  But I managed this photo of a male down at the Cap Sante Marina on the same day I photographed the gull and the crow.

And that, friends, more or less brings you up to date with my photography!

Birding in the yard has been VERY slow lately and as a consequence I’m beginning to shift to my extra-yard exploratory mode.  As you can see from some of my recent posts I have been visiting some of my winter birding haunts.  I’ve also been trying to catch up on some of my photo processing.

This particular post involves photos I took on a September 17, 2018, expedition around the area.  On this particular day I observed five Red-tailed hawks along about a mile stretch just south of Highway 20.  The photos here are of two of the hawks.

The other Red-tailed hawk was in the process of devouring a small rodent that it had just caught.  I’m surprised that I haven’t seen this activity more often over the years.

Down the hatch!

And in touring March Point on the way home I came across a small group (six as I recall) of Sanderlings.

By September 21, 2018, the stream of warblers coming to the yard seemed to have slowed and I assumed that the fall migration was about over.  I couldn’t have been more wrong!  

My birding day began rather slowly about 11:30am with me filling some of the feeders and bird baths in the yard.  There were few if any birds in the yard as I began my vigil under the eaves of the house to protect against very intermittent light rain. Things were slow so I decided to make a phone call. While I was on the phone (about 12:15pm) a Varied thrush suddenly flew into the yard, our first of the season and very early. We usually don’t see them until the winter snows deplete their food sources and drive them down from higher elevations.  Unfortunately I had my phone in my hand and couldn’t bring the camera to bear before the bird flew out of the yard. 

I had about an hour of only the usual birds, then over the next hour or so I had four species of warblers appear… Orange-crowned warbler (multiple visits to the yard, including five at one time!), a Yellow warbler, a male Black-throated Gray warbler, and a Townsend’s warbler which I at first mistook for a Golden-crowned kinglet, which were also in the yard at the same time.  

I had my work cut out for me, especially with about 20 House sparrows, many American goldfinches, two species of chickadees (Black-capped and Chestnut-sided) and a variety of other birds all in the yard at the same time.  

At one point there were FIVE Orange-crowned warblers in the yard at one time!  Then later in the afternoon my fifth warbler species made its first of two visits, a Yellow-rumped warbler.  

By the end of the day I had taken 375 photos of birds in the yard.  Of those, I retained 219, but such is the luxury of digital photography and a four terabyte hard drive!  So my inventory for the day was:

Thrush, Varied 

Warblers (five species): 

• Orange-crowned (many visits, five at one time) 
• Yellow (one visit) 
• Black-throated Gray (two visits) 
• Yellow-rumped (two visits) 
• Townsend’s (two visits) 

Sparrows (five species): 

• Towhee, Spotted 
• White-crowned 
• Golden-crowned 
• Song (first visit in a couple of months) 
• House 

Kinglet, Golden-crowned (multiple visits) 

Creeper, Brown 

Chickadee, Black-capped 

Chickadee, Chestnut-sided 

Bushtit (>10) 

Finch, House 

Goldfinch, American 

Hummingbird, Anna’s 

Woodpecker, Downy 

Flicker, Northern 

Quail, California (2 makes, seven females) 

Missing this day were our Dark-eyed juncos, which would have made six species of sparrows.  The following day I had all of the same species of warblers visit except the Townsend’s, but a male Wilson’s warbler showed up making six species of warblers for the weekend… all in our yard!  I think I managed photos of all the yard birds except the Varied thrush and kinglets which got passed over for some of the rarer warblers.  

(The week of 9/24-30 we saw NO warblers or any other pass-through migrants.)  

Here is a selection of some of the birds…

Female Bushtit…

Brown creeper…

Black-throated Gray warbler…

Orange-crowned warbler…

Townsend’s warbler…

Yellow warbler…

Yellow-rumped warbler…

Male Wilson’s warbler (from 9/22/2018)

Male Spotted towhee…

Male House finch…

Some of my notable photos and experiences that I intend to share are growing more and more dated, but I felt the need to share this experience, which happened yesterday, with you.  I try to walk the loop road in Washington Park five days a week, weather, health and other commitments permitting.  My walk start times vary somewhat with the seasons/amount of available light but by anyone’s standard I am at the park early.

This past spring and summer other early walkers and I have tracked the progress of a pair of breeding Barred owls who managed to successfully fledge two owlets.  We shared sightings and locations and were able to obtain many good views of the owls and their young,

On Wednesday, September 26, 2018, two of the morning walkers observed a Great Horned owl fly from the ground to a branch of a tree.  A good many of the morning walkers (and I) were able to see the owl which seemed unconcerned about our presence.  I took some photos with my cell phone but surmised (correctly as it turned out) that the owl might lay up for the day in the same general area.  So I returned at 10am when I could drive onto the loop road in my car with my camera, lens, monopod (total weight 13 pounds!) and a chair.  After a careful search, and having passed by it three times, I finally found it resting on a tree limb.  I took several photos but the owl was in shadow and I could see that as the day progressed, and if it didn’t move, it could be in more sun later in the day.

I returned to the park about 3pm and found the owl had moved only slightly and seemed to be enjoying the sun which was shining directly on its back and side.  I took another series of photos, some of which you see below.  When on my Thursday (9/26/2018) morning walk I was unable to relocate the owl.