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.

I’ve had some great days of photography, mostly of fall migrants passing through our yard on their way south or fall arrivals which will stay for the winter.  Because I’ve been spending so much time on photography and processing I haven’t kept up with posting photos to my blog.  I have a large backlog of photos to post, and normally I would post them in chronological order.  But I’m going to make an exception and post some photos here that will alert you to an unusual visitor in our area… a Great egret.

I viewed the visitor on two different days… the afternoons of Thursday, September 20 and Monday September 24.  The bird was in the same location both days… along (West) March Point Road just north of South Texas Road, opposite a large retention pond on fenced refinery property.  There’s no place to pull off the road there so you need to either do a drive-by or find a safe place to park.  Traffic at times (especially around 4-6pm) can be frequent and it’s a route used by tanker trucks, so exercise caution in the area.

On September 16, 2018, (Sunday), I decided to give the yard a break and hit the road.  I began with birding March Point, with the primary aim of photographing a few Caspian terns I had seen on a drive-by a couple of days previously.  I encountered these two Great Blue herons at different locations.

At the Headquarters Tract on Fir Island I found a large number of yellowlegs, a mix of Greater and Lesser.  (I’ll let you sort them out!)  I sat and watched them for a considerable length of time, watching them fly back and forth between a pair of logs in the water.  Even the closest log was a little further from my shore location than I would have liked.

I walked around the wetland and returned to my original location, taking more photos.  While I was looking through my camera’s viewfinder something (probably a hawk) flushed the yellowlegs, and in the panic that ensued three of the yellowlegs flew towards me and landed in the water at a much closer distance!  I was suddenly in business!

During the panic and its aftermath I managed to get one of the yellowlegs in flight.

When I returned to my vehicle I found three species of sparrows in the bushes.,, juvenile White-crowned sparrows, Song sparrows and this Lincoln’s sparrow, perhaps the rarest of the three species.

On the way back to March Point I ran across this Red-tailed hawk.  Unfortunately I was zoomed in when the hawk flew so I wasn’t able to capture the entire hawk in the photo, Nevertheless, I like the photo

Meanwhile, once again touring March Point, I found the Caspian terns out feeding and took many photos.