The weather has been changing and it seems that fall is here.  This is the time of year that I generally switch from photographing birds in the yard to making excursions to photograph waterfowl, shorebirds and raptors.  Monday morning signaled that change when members of the OARS group told me that they had seen loons just outside the marina.  I drove by the marina on the way home and there, in the NW corner of the marina, was this season’s first loon!  I ran a fairly lengthy errand and when I went back by the marina the loon was still there.  I went home, grabbed my camera and got back down in time to take a couple of dozen photos of the loon.  These aren’t the best I’ve ever taken, but they do signal the change in the focus of my photographic activities.

This fall has been an interesting time of year and has resulted in fall migrants and winter birds showing up in the yard.  It’s a welcome change from what had become rather standard fare over the past couple of months.

Some of our most welcome visitors have been what is apparently a family of Brown creepers which visit a rock bird bath in the yard several times each day.  On one occasion I saw three creepers around the bath at one time, and on another occasion or two I observed two.  As I’ve said before, the creeper is a fairly difficult bird to photograph… it seldom pauses its frenetic activity and its camouflage feathering seems to make it difficult for my camera to get a good focus, and the camouflage is so effective that even with a good focus the feathers on the bird’s back look out of focus.  Look carefully at the size of these birds’ feet… they must be the Alley Oops of the bird world!

We still have at least two Anna’s hummingbirds which may end up staying the winter with us.  I always feel bad about the birds staying, but since they remain whether or not we feed them I continue trying to support them.  In this case the bird pictured is a male.

The Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) are back, although no yet in great numbers.  During the winter months they are probably our most numerous species, although in some years that distinction might be challenged by Pine siskins.  And just a couple of days ago my wife observed a Dark-eyed junco of the Slate-colored race in the yard… which will make ten years that at least one has visited us in the winter.

Juncos are one of my favorite birds with regard to their feather pattern and the contrast between the feathers on the birds’ hoods and those on the rest of their body.

This past week we witnessed the return of a Fox sparrow to the yard.  We should have at least one all winter.

During the spring and summer we had rare visits from both Golden-crowned kinglets (pictured below) and Ruby-crowned kinglets.  The Golden-crowned kinglets are now fairly frequent visitors to the yard and often show up in pairs.  I believe this is a female pictured.

We’re still hosting the male Hairy woodpecker from earlier this summer.  This is the first one we’ve had here at the house in several years, and one day several weeks ago it visited with another male.

Our Golden-crowned sparrows are back and we have 4-5 in the yard most days.  Already this fall we are hosting five different species of sparrows:  House, Fox, Song, White-crowned and Golden-crowned.  That will probably be it for the winter unless we get a very unusual stray.  And we still have an ample supply of their cousins:  American goldfinches, House finches and the juncos I already mentioned.

And finally, after I presumed that the warbler migration was about over, we’re getting a good many Yellow-rumped warblers in the yard.  Most seem to be of the Audubon race, but the race, and to a greater extent the sex, can be somewhat difficult to discern at this time of year.  I suspect the one pictured below may be a juvenile male Audubon’s with a hint of yellow on the throat and some very indistinct streaks of yellow on the top of the head.

On Saturday, Sep 10, I had another opportunity to spend time in the yard and the time was productive.  I had a good many warbler visits, but unlike the previous Monday all the warblers this day were Orange-crowned warblers… unless the very young warbler pictured at the end of this warbler series is another species.  It appears that this warbler wasn’t long  out of the nest!

A Black-capped chickadee landed very close to me and gave me the opportunity for some good close-ups…

We still have some juvenile American robins showing up in the yard late in the breeding season,,,

Our Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) had been gone for several weeks but this was the species first return to the yard after their absence.  On any given day in the winter this can be our most numerous yard bird.

We have a good population of House finches and this male gave me a lot of opportunities for photographs.

After an absence of 2-3 weeks we had a covey of California quail visit the yard briefly.  The good news for us is that there were about a dozen, and the quail are now near-adult size which makes them less vulnerable to predators.  I usually think that if the quail raise just 2-3 it’s a successful breeding year, so I have to consider this year’s crop outstanding.  My hat is off to the parents!

I had two species that I managed to photograph of which I am especially proud, because they can be difficult to photograph.  This first photo is of a Red-breasted nuthatch, a fairly common bird in the yard (although not so much this summer) but they rarely stop moving and so are difficult to photograph.

And this last bird is perhaps the most difficult bird I have found to photograph… a Brown creeper.  The creeper is usually difficult to find and is not always a consistent visitor to the yard.  And even more than the nuthatch, it seems that the creeper very seldom remains still… except perhaps for a drink of water!  Notice the long curved bill useful from extracting insects from cracks between the bark.  Notice also the plumage on the bird’s back which makes it very difficult to see on many trees.

I had a delightful and productive couple of hours of birding in the afternoon on Monday, September 5, 2016.

The entire day was a little on the cool side and overcast. The lack of direct sunlight is actually an advantage for bird photography as there is not a problem with shadows on the birds, either from leaves and twigs or from the birds’ beaks. It also means that you don’t have to deal with the contrast that can sometimes detract from photos.

I was busy with other activities during the day and didn’t make it into the yard until about 3:30pm when I immediately saw an Orange-crowned warbler. Over the next two hours I had the following sightings in the yard:

Orange-crowned warblers
These are probably our most numerous visitors during this fall migration. Unfortunately these are easily confused casually with our second most common visitors…

Yellow warblers (most juveniles or females)
The Yellow warbler is generally an unusual visitor to the yard, so it’s been somewhat of a surprise to have multiple visits from them.  I seemed to have one male, probably  a juvenile…

with the rest being juveniles or females…

Wilson’s warbler (m)
Usually our most common warbler in the yard, this year they’ve been quite scarce. In the past week or so we’ve had a couple of females, but on this day we had what was clearly a male.

Townsend’s warbler (female or juvenile)
We generally have about one Townsend warbler visit each year, so I consider this visit unusual. It was also the crown to a four-warbler day in the yard. (My wife saw a male Townsend’s warbler the following day.)

Golden-crowned kinglet (f)
The first bird I was able to photograph upon entering the yard was a Golden-crowned kinglet, apparently a female. I had one other sighting during the afternoon but couldn’t tell its sex and was not able to photograph it.

Brown creeper
A Brown creeper appeared very near to me, but at a bad angle for photography and with intervening foliage, so I wasn’t able to obtain a photograph. We have Brown creepers from time to time during the year but they were mostly absent this past summer.

Bewick’s wren
This is another unusual sighting, although they are probably in the general area more than my sightings indicate. I wouldn’t have seen this one if it hadn’t been vocalizing on one of my trips from the house. I wasn’t able to obtain a photograph of the wren.

Anna’s hummingbirds (m&f)
W have at least a pair of Anna’s hummingbirds in the yard and the male, which may be a first-year juvenile, is already establishing a territory consisting of one feeder and several blooming salvia and a coleus in the front yard. This observation was noteworthy in that the male flew to the watercourse and took a bath. This has been a common activity (especially with the Rufous hummingbirds in past years), but this is only about the second time this year that I have observed a hummingbird taking a bath.

This is the male… I wasn’t able to photograph the female…

Other yard sightings that afternoon:
Hairy woodpecker (m)
Downy woodpecker (m&f)
Eurasian Collared doves (~10)
European starling (a single crippled juvenile that has been a daily visitor)
White-crowned sparrow with at least two juveniles
Red-breasted nuthatch, since breeding season in short supply
Chickadees, both Chestnut-backed and Black-capped
American goldfinches, some still feeding juveniles
Spotted towhee (f)
American robin
House sparrows
House finches

In addition to the birds, I also had the following visitors to the yard, all of which I photographed except for the two Eastern Gray squirrels which have taken up permanent residency in the yard. Listed in reverse order of rarity:
Eastern Gray squirrels
Townsend’s chipmunk (there were two observed the following day)
Cottontail rabbit

Norwegian rat (a very rare visitor which better maintain its rarity or else face deportation)

So this was a four-warbler species day and I’m finally finished with processing some 200+ photos, 135 of which I retained and most of which were birds. (As a birder, if you want a real challenge, try separating into species 85 intermingled photos of Yellow and Orange-crowned warblers, many of which are either females or juveniles, some wet from baths, taken from a multitude of different angles!) Among my prizes for the day were a few photos, taken on more than one occasion, of both an Orange-crowned and a Yellow warbler in the watercourse at the same time.

And there you have it… almost exactly two hours of observation/photography time, close to double that time in photo processing, and a couple of hours in writing and creating a blog post.  And people wonder what retirees do with their time.

I believe that the fall migration is on!  This past week, with virtually no warblers for the past couple of months, we are suddenly experiencing an influx of warblers.  Our most common visitors are Orange-crowned warblers, one of which is pictured below taking a bath in our watercourse.

On August 31, within the space of about 15-minutes, I saw two Orange-crowned warblers, a male Wilson’s warbler and two female Wilson’s warblers.  During this same time period I also saw a male Golden-crowned kinglet and a Brown creeper.

Here’s another photo of the Orange-crowned warbler bathing amid a group of juvenile American goldfinches.  I believe that it might have its beak open to warn the other birds not to interfere with its bath!

Here’s another photo of an Orange-crowned warbler… it hardly looks like the same species, but there’s considerable variation in the coloration, especially at this time of year.  And I always think the birds look yellower when wet.

And here’s a photo I took today, once again with two of the warblers in the yard (in this case the watercourse) at the same time.

Today I also had two different visits from one or more Black-throated gray warblers.  At first I thought that one had been a male and the other female, but after careful examination of my photos I realized that both were male.  In these photos it’s not particularly evident that the black throat extends to the beak, which would be a characteristic of the female.

And as a little bonus, I’m including a photo of this male House finch which clearly shows the red patch on the bird’s rump.  This patch is not always visible when observing birds in the field.

Here’s a little gathering of House sparrows having baths in the watercourse.  I liked the male sparrow in the center of the photograph.