Dribbling out a few more yard birds, just in time for Christmas!  We’ve now experienced that shortest day of the year and photography will get nothing but better over the next 8-9 months.  I’ve been having to photograph birds using a relatively high ISO which results in photos with less detail and more graininess, but as the light increases that obstacle is reduced.  But for the next month or so we’ll all be having to deal with lower quality photographs.

The first two photographs below are of a male Ruby-crowned kinglet.  The ruby crown, found only on the male, can be quite challenging to see in the field. Photographs, as in this case, can sometimes help me sort the males from the females but in many cases I just have to leave my photos unlabeled as to sex.  These photos are of the same bird and from very nearly the same angle.

In the first photo there’s no trace of a ruby crown, but as you can see in the second photo, the ruby crown is showing and the bird can be identified as a male.  So had I not gotten the additional photo showing the color I wouldn’t be able to be sure as to the sex of the bird.

I might add that the kinglet can raise and lower the crown, and it will often raise the crown when it is alarmed.  It also tends to reveal the crown when it is bathing and gets its head wet.

Here’s another small bird that’s one of my favorites but can be difficult to photograph.  It’s a Brown creeper, usually found moving UP one of the main branches of a tree.  (The bird with similar feeding habits is the Red-breasted nuthatch, which is usually observed moving DOWN a main tree trunk.)  Note the slender, curved bill used for extracting insects from cracks between the bark and the huge feet which allow the bird a secure grip.  And the tail feathers, like those of woodpeckers, are stiff and used to brace the bird against the side of the tree, as pictured here.  The bird is extremely well camouflaged and would be difficult to see if it weren’t so active.

We usually have one of these Fox sparrows in the yard each winter.  A novice birder can have difficulty between identification of the Fox sparrow, the Song sparrow and the Golden-crowned sparrow, all here at this time of year.  Both the Song sparrow and the Fox sparrow have breast stripes while the breast of the Golden-crowned sparrow is clear.  The Song sparrow has a strong facial pattern and the Fox sparrow has a plain face.  The color of a Fox sparrows breast stripes always reminds me of the color of a cup of hot chocolate.

We have least three Spotted towhees in the yard this winter.  This one is probably a male as evidenced by its dark black feathers and the strong rust color of its sides.

Until our recent snows, we still had one or two species of salvia blooming in the yard.  They are great plants for attracting hummingbirds and yet fading into the background for photography.  I photographed this male Anna’s hummingbird feeding on the salvia in late November.  The male Anna’s is still with us and defending a feeder as of Christmas!

Tis the season…

The Skagit Valley is full of raptors at this time of year.  Unfortunately for me as a photographer, there are not that many options for natural perches next to the fields where they hunt their prey.  So while it’s relatively easy to find raptors to photograph, most of them are on power lines or poles.  Here is an example… a Red-tailed hawk perched on a power pole.

On the other hand, every once in awhile you get lucky.  Early in December there were daily reports of a Tropical kingbird being seen just outside Stanwood.  I made three separate trips to the area in the hopes of photographing the bird, but I never even saw it.  However, on one of the trips back to my house an accipiter flew low over the road in front of me and continued into one of the Cap Sante Marina parking lots.  After a short search I managed to find the bird and it was compliant enough to allow me several photographs.  One of my more knowledgable birding friends identified this bird as a juvenile Cooper’s hawk.

On November 17 I hit pay dirt!  I discovered a large flock of 50 or more birds eating berries from a madrone tree only about a block from my house.  For about 20 minutes I was able to photograph various birds in the tree.  Here’s a Cedar waxwing…

and a female Northern flicker…

and an American robin exerting a fine degree of control in berry acquisition…

and another one out of control!

On the same day I discovered a Common loon preening in the Cap Sante Marina…

This was as good a photography day as I have had in some time!

As I believe I stated previously, I wasn’t too happy about either my photographs or photographic opportunities on this trip to New Mexico.  However I am going to post a few more photos and then I’ll return to some nice photos from Skagit County.

The following photos, except for the meadowlark, were taken at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (known for a program to restore Mexican gray wolves to the area) located between Socorro and Albuquerque.  First up is aa adult White-crowned sparrow with an injured foot or leg.

This is a juvenile White-crowned sparrow.  The markings are very similar but the head stripes are brown and gray instead of black and white.

This is a male House finch, a bird that is common in the Pacific Northwest.  I get nervous about my finch identifications when I travel to this area of the country because there are other species of finches notably (Cassin’s) in the area and the two species look relatively similar.

This is a female House finch.  Note the total lack of rose coloring on the bird.

Since the last time we visited the refuge added a small pond immediately adjacent to the parking lot so that I could photograph the birds using my car as a blind.  Since this is a very dry area of the country the birds were very attracted to the water.  It was a great location for birding photography.  In this photo a female House finch is using a tiny twig to obtain a drink of water.

And finally (there’s always a ‘finally’), here is a meadowlark.  There are both Eastern meadowlarks and Western meadowlarks and both are found in Texas and New Mexico.  I have no idea which species this is.  I was once told by one of Texas’ foremost birders that it’s virtually impossible to distinguish the two species by appearance.  His technique on Texas Christmas Bird Counts was to roll down the window and listen for their calls, which are distinctive… at least to him!

That concludes my New Mexico photography.  The next post you see will be a return to birds of Skagit County.

My wife and I took what has become an annual trip to New Mexico in late October.  We were a little earlier than we had been in past years, in part in an effort to avoid the Festival of the Cranes held in the Bosque del Apache NWR that attracts hundreds of visitors in November.  In past years preparations for the festival have interrupted our birding activities.  This year only a couple of hundred Sandhill cranes, Snow geese and waterfowl had arrived by the time we did, so while those birds weren’t our primary focus things were different in a somewhat negative way.

On our first morning at the refuge this Curve-billed thrasher popped up in the cactus garden and generously offered several photo opportunities.  The light wasn’t good but it was our only view of the thrasher in three days of birding the area.

The refuge has an area near the HQ that is very attractive to the birds, but unfortunately historically the refuge personnel haven’t recognized the photographic possibilities and almost everything they do works against photographic opportunities.  As someone who has landscaped our yard for birding photography, I find my visits somewhat frustrating.  Nevertheless, I do what I can even with the lack of consideration stacked against me.

Some of the more interesting birds in the HQ area that were attracted to water were the Pyrrhuloxia (females pictured below). (There’s going to be a spelling and pronunciation test on the name, so study it carefully!)  The females appear very similar to female Northern cardinals.  On a couple of occasions I observed a male accompanying two females, but the females were the only ones that came to the water feature and I never got the opportunity on this trip to photograph a male.

At the same water feature I photographed visits by goldfinches, both American and Lesser.  I’m a little uncertain which species the one appearing below is since the females of both species seem very similar in the winter.

There were a number of White-winged doves around the HQ parking lot where this one was photographed.  These birds continue to expand their range.  When I first began birding the ones we had in Texas were confined to the southern portion of the state.  They are now almost everywhere we travel in the west, including in Skagit County, WA.

The real attraction for many birders, other than the beautiful sunrises and sunsets that occur there, are the Sandhill cranes.  By mid-November there are thousands on the refuge.  They spend the night in shallow, flooded farm fields so that they have warning of coyotes and other predators approaching.  Around sunrise most fly off en mass to surrounding farm fields to feed during the day.  Late in the afternoon they began returning to the refuge in small groups, offering exceptional photographic opportunities.

The morning of our second day I managed a few photos of a Greater roadrunner which had climbed a small scrub tree for a better vantage point.  We saw several at the refuge but this is one of my better photos this year.

It’s been a while since I last posted.  My wife and I traveled to New Mexico for a little birding at the end of October, but that’s a tale I’ll embellish in my next blog post.  Most of the photos appearing in this post were taken last month with the exception of the last bird below.

This is a not-so-great photo of a Bewick’s wren in our yard.  I included it because our habitat is not that welcoming to wrens and they are fairly rare visitors.  So you might refer to this as an ‘appearance’ photograph… and I am appreciative for the visit!

We had a bumper crop of madrone berries this year, both in and out of the yard.  There’s a theory that when trees are stressed they might sense that they are in danger and to insure the survival of the species they produce extra seeds, in this case in the form of fruit.  The drought we had this summer definitely stressed the madrones, especially those growing on rock with shallow root systems.  This is a female House finch eating the madrone berries.  The larger birds (to wit, American robins) swallow the fruit whole while the finches eat off the fruit much like we eat an apple, a bite at a time.

This next series of photographs shows a gull which found a rather large crab immediately adjacent to the water.  Normally this would be a rather easy meal, but in this case the crab was large and the gull was unable (while I was watching) to pull off any legs, the usual means of attack.  I don’t know the outcome.

This next series of photos were taken in the Cap Sante Marina parking lot.  I was returning with a friend from an expedition to the Stanwood area to try to find the Tropical kingbird reputed to be there last week.  (I was zero for three on those efforts.)  As we passed the dog park this accipiter flew across the road in front of us and into the parking lot.  I followed and found it in a deciduous tree.  They are normally quite shy, but this one allowed me to take about ten photos and then move the car even closer to give my friend a better angle.  I got about four more photos at the closer range.  It finally flew, but I was very appreciative for the opportunity to photograph this species, an opportunity that only comes every couple of years and usually not under such favorable conditions.

I consider the Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawk species virtually indistinguishable, but a friend of mine who is a retired wildlife biologist tells me that this is a sub-adult Cooper’s hawk.