Thursday, April 30, 2020 

I began this day thinking that nothing could eclipse the previous day’s birding/photography, but I was wrong. Here’s an overview of the day’s sightings and photography:

In the yard from about 12noon until 5pm, then again briefly from about 6:00-6:30pm.

Photos:630  

Warblers:

• Orange-crowned 
• Wilson’s (male) 
• Yellow-rumped Audubon (both males) 
• Black-throated Gray (first of season) 
• Townsend’s (first of season) 

I’ll begin with the Orange-crowned warbler, since it mustered the most visits. I estimate the species made at least 20 visits to the yard and there were at least a couple of visits when multiple representatives of the species were in the yard at the same time.

While this visitor is not a migrant, I always enjoy getting photos because it’s not a frequent visitor to the watercourse and I don’t like to photograph birds on feeders. It’s a Red-breasted nuthatch. This one is a little on the pale side.

Another frequent visitor was the Wilson’s warbler, all of which were male.

We has visits from two male Yellow-rumped warblers but I was unable to get anything but a record shot of one of them. I noticed this one high in a fir tree overhead.

We had a single visit from a Townsend’s warbler, a female.

Our next special visitor was a male Black-headed grosbeak, our first of the season.

Next up, a Ruby-crowned kinglet. This bird, and its cousin the Golden-crowned kinglet (not pictured), are normally fairly common in the yard during the winter months. This past winter however, they were conspicuously absent.

Our next special visitor, and a rare migrant to our yard, was a female Black-throated Gray warbler. This was the first of the season for this visitor and I only managed one photo, which due to quality I refer to as a “record shot”. It’s not a good photo but it’s a record the the bird was in the yard.

I’ll feature a couple of Rufous hummingbirds next. First the female feeding on the blossoms of an evergreen huckleberry.

A male Rufous hummingbird hovering above the watercourse. I never get tired of photographing these situations due to the challenge of the moving bird and the fine details of the bird’s feathers. And due to the birds’ rapid wingbeats the result you obtain is serendipity.

This is a Pacific Slope flycatcher. Since this bird is extremely rare in the yard, I suspect that it is the same one that visited the previous day.

Finally, a very unexpected visitor to the yard. I looked up from whatever I was doing to see a male Western tanager land in a madrone tree directly in front of me. Unfortunately the bird was backlit to some extent but I managed over a dozen photos before it decided to move on.

April 29, 2020, was to be maybe the best bird photography day I’ve had while living here (since 2008). I began birding about 11am and continued until about 3pm, taking 503 photographs and logging two first of season migrants and one very special visitor. For a change of pace, most of the photographs (by far) were special visitors (migrants) with few photos taken of the more common yard birds that have gotten me through the past several months.

My intention for this spring migration was to log the number of visits per day by the migrants, but I was overwhelmed by the birds and realize that I can’t perform photography and log birds at the same time. And there were many times when I had to make a decision about which of the migrants I wanted to photograph when more than one species was in the yard at the same time.

I’ll start with a photo of a male Rufous hummingbird taking a bath in the watercourse. This bird makes several trips a day to the watercourse for a bath, and although this isn’t a frontal photo, I enjoy viewing the bird’s wings and tail, views you don’t often get to examine in the field.

New photos of the species in the prior post, a female Yellow-rumped warbler of the Myrtle race.

Early in the day a very special visitor… a Pacific Slope flycatcher! When photographing this bird I initially thought it was a vireo, and it added to my tentative identification by “dip-bathing” in the watercourse. In processing the photos I realized that it probably wasn’t a vireo and sought confirmation of the specific flycatcher ID from a more a knowledgable birding friend,.

Now another bird I can’t recall ever having seen in the yard, a male Yellow-rumped warbler of the Myrtle’s race. (Compare with the female pictured above.) Note the white throat and the yellow crown.

Another bird making its seasonal debut here in the yard was the male Wilson’s warbler. In past years I considered the Wilson’s warbler to be our most frequent visitor, but its been far eclipsed by the Orange-crowned warblers this year.

Before I move from the subject of warblers, I’ll display a couple of images of this year’s most frequent warbler visitor… the Orange-crowned warbler.

This wrapped up the unusual, migrant and ‘first of season’ birds for the day, but not the photography. This female Rufous hummingbird was accessing one of our madrone trees.

And for contrast, here’s a female Anna’s hummingbird trying to decide whether or not to enter the watercourse.

Although in the neighborhood, Eurasian Collared doves have stayed out of our yard until recently. Several months ago raptors got two in the vicinity of our house. Now there are at least two pairs back visiting the yard.

But it wasn’t over quite yet! Near the end of the day we had a Brown creeper, a fairly rare visitor, enter the yard and take a tour of watercourses, giving me an unusual number of opportunities to photograph this visitor.

This was probably the best birding photography day I’ve had since we lived here (2008), and I thought that things couldn’t get any better. I was WRONG!

April 29, 2020, brought a lot of non-birding activity that kept me away from the yard for much of the day.  I did see an Orange-crowned warbler, by far our most common warbler species to date, pass through the yard early in the morning, but I had no opportunity to photograph it.  I didn’t manage to get into the yard with my photographic gear until about 3:30pm, and by then it was pretty heavily overcast with a few drops of rain every now and then.  

I set up in the yard and watched a couple of Orange-crowned warblers pass through the trees high overhead, but they seemed much more interested in gleaning insects than in accessing any of our water features.  I finally had one enter our Golden Chain tree and investigate our watercourse but it never came down to the watercourse.  I managed a few photos of it in the tree camouflaged by the tree’s blossoms which are now in full bloom, making it a challenge to see yellow birds (as in American goldfinches) in the tree.  

It was close to 5pm and I was getting cool and somewhat discouraged and about to go inside when a warbler flew onto a staging limb I have just behind the watercourse.  I began taking photos and the bird first came down to the watercourse, then back up to staging sticks, then to our stone bird bath with me taking photos of it all along its path!  

I realized that this was an unusually pale Yellow-rumped warbler and knew that it was probably a female but gave it little thought until I was processing the photos later in the evening.  In processing the photos I realized that this was a Myrtle’s warbler, a much rarer (to our area) race than the more common Audubon’s race.  I believe that this is the first Myrtle’s race of Yellow-rumped warbler that I have ever photographed in the yard!  

So a little basic birding knowledge here.  Ever since I have been ‘seriously’ birding (late 1980s) the single species of Yellow-rumped warbler has been divided into two races, Audubon’s and Myrtle’s.  In researching this I discovered that at one point these two races, or subspecies, were combined.  At some point, (probably not in my lifetime!) the organization that is responsible for naming birds (the American Ornithological Society’s North American Classification Committee (NACC)) could split the species and declare the Audubon’s and Myrtle’s races separate species. This was done for towhees some years back; the Dark-eyed juncos have about six races/subspecies and this species also seems ripe for splitting!  But I’m getting too far from any expertise I have in these matters, so at this point if you are still interested you can do your own research!  (The Audubon.org website has a good explanation of the history of the Yellow-rumped warbler species.)     

So what characteristic makes this a female Myrtle’s warbler?  The  most obvious characteristic is the Audubon’s race has yellow on its throat (see male below) while the Myrtle’s race has white on its throat.  And the males of both species have a yellow crown, something lacking in the females.  

While the Myrtle’s warbler was still flitting around the yard I became aware of other activity around the watercourse.  I realized that there was another warbler (this one a male Audubon’s race of Yellow-rumped warblers) perched above the watercourse and so began photographing this much more colorful bird.  And while I was photographing it I noticed that two more Yellow-rumped warblers had flown onto the same staging snag above the watercourse.  I was just bringing my camera to bear on one of them, which was partially hidden by an intervening snag, when all four warblers flew from the yard.  I was unable to determine the races of the two warblers I didn’t photograph.  

So here, in all its breeding splendor, is a male Yellow-rumped warbler of the Audubon’s race.  

This was a great day for birding photography, but it was nothing like what was to come the next day!

April 24, 2020, proved to be another productive yard birding day.  I was in the yard from about 1pm until about 4:30pm and then again for a short time around 6pm.  During that time I observed about 10 Orange-crowned warbler visits and two Yellow-rumped warbler visits plus four visits from one or more Steller’s jays.  

I’ve been spending a lot of thought lately as to how I could better document visits from spring migrants and other rarer birds that arrive in the yard.  In past years I have recored a weekly tally of all visitors, with the number being the highest number I saw at any one time.  In cases which I could make a clear distinction between/among birds I would add them to the total.  The problem with this method is that I might record a count of two for a species seen during the week, but I might have actually had multiple single visits in a day or even every day for a week, so the count didn’t actually reflect my (or the birds’) activity.  So now I’m trying to think of a way to move towards number of sightings per day for each of the rarer and spring migrant species.  This would better reflect the flow of visitors through the yard and give me a better picture of the migration that I could use in the future… although each year is going to be different.  And this year is somewhat unique in that I didn’t make my annual trip to Texas and the COVID-19 virus has given us all some extra time for such activities.  (Wait, don’t tell me… too much information!)    

First, a little good news.  I was gratified to see that the male Downy woodpecker that is apparently blind in one eye survived the winter and apparently has a mate.  I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to fly (and land) without vision in one eye since two eyes are required for depth perception.  

And the Black-capped chickadee with a severely crippled leg also survived the winter and seems to be doing fine.  I photographed it hanging from the inverted suet feeder with no apparent problems.  

But to add to this inventory, I observed and photographed a White-crowned sparrow (one of three we have in the yard) favoring one leg.  I saw and photographed the bird on several occasions standing on one leg but then I also saw it use the leg on a couple of occasions.  So I assume that the leg must be injured but usable to some extent.  

So let’s get on to a few of the other 277 photos I took on this day… 

The most newsworthy appearance for the day was the return of a Steller’s jay, a rare visitor to the neighborhood. I topped off my inventory with 47 ‘keeper’ photographs taken during this species’ four visits to the yard.

I counted at least ten visits by Orange-crowned warblers to the yard, and two of the visits involved pairs.

The Yellow-rumped warblers (all Audubon’s) and all or most males, have been difficult to photograph so far this year. On this day I had two visits but only managed about two photographs that were keepers.

Our hummingbird visitors have dropped significantly over the past couple of weeks… other friends have voiced the same concern. This female Anna’s hummingbird is accessing the blooms on a native Red currant.

Strange bath-fellows… this White-crowned sparrow bathing with a male House sparrow. Thankfully these species don’t hybridize!

And finally, late in the day, a pair of California quail. For the first time ever we carried a covey of about 13 through the winter. In past years we wouldn’t see ANY quail, and it was always a mystery where they went.

On April 20-21, 2020, I had some of the most remarkable birding sightings over a 24-hour period I can remember in our 19 years of living in the Cap Sante neighborhood. We’ll call it Karma and I’ll mention why at the end of this post.  

April 20, 2020, was quite an uneventful day until late in the afternoon  I had spent considerable time in the yard with very little to show for it. However, as I sat pondering whether or not to call it quits for the day, I became aware of a nondescript bird hopping beside me only about seven feet away. I immediately recognized it as a thrush, and in appearing in early spring presumed it to be a Swainson’s thrush. (The Hermit thrush, which is a fall/ winter resident, is virtually identical.)  I managed multiple photos (in relatively poor light) as the bird made a 180-degree arc around me. 

April 21, 2020, began cool and overcast. Upon returning from my morning walk I began preparing breakfast, at the same time reflecting that spring migration was occurring and glancing out the window from time to time.  A male Yellow-rumped (Audubon’s) warbler suddenly appeared at the small saucer of water that the warblers seem to be preferring. This male was not as striking as the previous one(s) visiting the same location.  As I watched it bathe an Orange-crowned warbler entered a small Japanese maple about three feet above.  Two different species of warbler in the yard at the same time… the migration is truly on!  

For several days there have been at least three very active Pine siskins in the yard. I saw a bird in our stone bird bath and assumed that it was one of the siskins, but the color didn’t seem right.  I trained my lens on it and immediately identified it as a Lincoln’s sparrow, an extremely rare visitor to the yard. I managed several photos as it bathed. 

Shortly thereafter I began hearing an unfamiliar, loud persistent call coming from across the street. I guessed it was a Steller’s jay call and confirmed it with my Sibley’s app. The vocalizations continued for at least ten minutes as I continued to scan the yard for any new arrivals. 

About this point our male Rufous hummingbird entered the yard and I upped my shutter speed to 1/800th of a second in anticipation of taking photos of the hummingbird hovering over the watercourse.  I took a few photos but almost immediately a Steller’s jay entered the yard for a tour. I took a lot of photos, but unfortunately, in my excitement, I neglected to lower my shutter speed. Fortunately my Adobe Lightroom will allow me to correct the error. After the jay exited our yard I saw at least four Steller’s jays moving up a neighbor’s cypress tree across the street. 

Still later in the afternoon I got a visit from two Orange-crowned warblers and for a minute or so they were bathing side by side in the watercourse!  A while after they left I got a visit from a single Orange-crowned warbler. Its reluctance  to enter the watercourse led me to believe that it wasn’t one of the pair I had seen earlier. 

After a rather lengthy period of inactivity in the yard, we had yet another visit from an Orange-crowned warbler.  And almost immediately after it left a single Canada goose flew over!  Then yet another Orange-crowned warbler visit, this one clearly more interested in gleaning insects than in the water features. 

Suddenly there was a very large influx of small birds… at least two more Orange-crowned warblers, a Golden-crowned kinglet, a Ruby-crowned kinglet and Bushtits.  The Bushtits are regular, multi-times per day visitors, but in this case at least one, and possibly two, took bathes… a very unusual occurrence for our Bushtits.    

It was impossible for me to track all of the activity. I was trying to monitor four water features (all in use simultaneously) with all kinds of small birds flying around the yard and take photos at the same time. I wanted to get a photo of the Ruby-crowned kinglet for record purposes since they had been rather conspicuously absent this past winter.  I had a sudden idea… maybe there was a Hutton’s vireo mixed in with this group!  Within about four feet from me was a small Japanese maple and in it were several small birds.  I began to examine them more closely and discovered that one was a Hutton’s vireo!  Then began my effort to photograph the vireo as well as the Ruby-crowned kinglet that I verified was also present. 

I’ll just also mention that for the past two days I’ve heard vocalizations in the forest to the south of us.  I have difficulty telling the difference between American robin vocalizations and Black-headed grosbeak vocalizations, but since the robins seemed to have been paired and territories established, I strongly suspect I’m hearing a grosbeak. 

All in all, I had spent about four hours in the yard on April 21, 2020.  What a day!  So the tally of special birds for the 24-hours is:  

• Swainson’s thrush (spring migrant, spring & summer resident). 
• Male Yellow-rumped (Audubon’s) warbler (spring migrant) 
• Orange-crowned warblers (an estimated 10-12 visits).   
• Steller’s jays (one in yard, total of at least four in the area) 
• Lincoln’s sparrow 
• Canada goose (in flight) 
• Golden-crowned kinglet 
• Ruby-crowned kinglet 
• Hutton’s vireo 

And while I’m at it, I’ll mention a few of our regular residents: 

• American goldfinches 
• Chestnut-backed chickadees (a ‘target’ bird for non-PacNW visitors!)
• Black-capped chickadees 
• Red-breasted nuthatches 
• American robins  
• Northern flickers 
• Downy woodpeckers 
• Pine siskins 
• Bewick’s wren 
• White-crowned sparrows 
• Golden-crowned sparrows 
• Eurasian Collared doves 
• California quail 
• Red-winged blackbirds 
• House finches
• … and others!  

And the Karma?  But for COVID-19, April 20 was to have been the first day of my annual birding trip to my sister’s and her husband’s house west of Austin, Texas!