I was rather shocked in late March to discover an almost complete Bushtit nest on one of my regular neighborhood driving routes.  The nest resembles a sock hanging from a limb, so the eggs and incubating adult(s) are hidden from other birds that might disturb the nest.  My first thought was that it was left over from last year, but I reasoned that it was so obvious that there was no way I could have missed it.  A little observation revealed it was built in very short order for this year’s breeding season.  (The Bushtits do no reuse their nests.)

I watched over a multi-day period and although the exterior of the nest was apparently finished, the birds continued to pad the inside during the time of my observations.  I was concerned when we had a heavy rain a week or so ago that the nest might get water-soaked and fail, but though it has sagged rather significantly it is still holding up.

The Bushtits are very small birds, roughly the size of kinglets but with a longer tail.  Interestingly, the sexes of the birds can be told apart by their eye color.  The male has a dark eye while the female has a mustard-yellow ring around a dark center.  (Sorry, but although I have recently successfully completed cataract surgery, I’m not an anatomist and  can’t scientifically identify the parts of the eye… especially those of birds!)

So here are a few photos of the birds, in some cases bringing nesting materials back to the nest…

For at least the past two weeks or so we’ve had an accipiter visiting the yard.  An accipiter is a raptor that generally makes its living feeding off of other birds, and yards with good habitat (which attracts birds) are good hunting grounds for the accipiters.  The two most common accipiters in this area are the Sharp-shinned hawk and the Cooper’s hawk, and their appearances, put mildly, are quite similar.

Several years ago I took some excellent photos of an accipiter on the same fence as the one pictured in the last photo below and sent them to several birders, all more skilled than I, for identification.  Four came down for the Sharp-shinned and four came down for the Cooper’s… the “final” identification was finally successfully defended by one of the birders who was a wildlife biologist.

So here are some photos of our visitor and the dates it was photographed…

March 26, 2016, visit.  This was my first photo (but not sighting) of the accipiter this year.  These birds will actually wade into brush piles to try to flush prey.

My next photos, of presumably the same bird, occurred on March 30, 2016.  (The photos are getting better!)

My most recent sighting of the accipiter was on April 3, 2016.  Ironically, the bird is standing on the same fence I mentioned in my prior comments.

These, as you can see, are beautiful birds but their arrival will totally flush your yard of other species of birds for a considerable length of time.  They never stay for long but make the rounds of yards in the neighborhood where feeders attract other birds.

On a hopefully unrelated note, I have yet to log my first warbler in the yard.  It’s still early and I’m not behind with regard to prior years, but I’m ready to start photographing warblers!

On March 26,2016, I was invited by a birding friend for an excursion on his boat.  We left the Twin Bridges Marina early in the afternoon in full sun.  The first bird we encountered was a Great Blue Heron sunning its wings.  At the time my mental thought was that the heron was drying its wings, but on further reflection I realized that there’s very little reason for a heron to get its wings wet, so I think we can just assume that it was enjoying the warmth from the sunshine.  Although I couldn’t hear it for the boat noise, I could tell by its throat that it was apparently vocalizing, and it appeared to do it even more as we left the marina area.

Our next major find was a group of Brandt’s cormorants on a buoy in Fidalgo Bay.,  This was my first sighting with identification of the species.

We later observed a group of 15-20 congregating in the water, something I’ve never observed with either the Double-creasted cormorant or the Pelagic cormorant.  The birds first formed a very tight-knit group, then moved off in a strung-out file.

Along our way we also observed several Long-tailed ducks, the two pictured below both being female.

Ever since moving to Anacortes in 2001 I have wanted a quality photo of a loon in full breeding plumage.  Just about every year I have been here I have stalked loons down at the Cap Sante Marina, but although I’ve taken many photos of loons over the years I’ve never gotten one in full breeding plumage. It seems that every year the loons leave the area just before coming into their breeding plumage… which leaves me more than a little frustrated!

This year, today (3/19/2016), I finally achieved my goal  This Common loon didn’t make things easy.  When I first spotted it, it was preening which provides the opportunity to photograph the bird in the poses I posted in my blog about a week ago.  I retrieved my camera and returned to the marina, but by this time the bird had quit preening and switched to “diving for food” mode.  It was now playing “cat and mouse” and kept disappearing on the other side of the various docks.  It could stay under water about a minute, swim a hundred feet or so and necessitate my walking several hundred yards for another photographic opportunity.  I played its game for awhile, but as fortune would have it, it suddenly surfaced very near me unexpectedly and I managed to take two quick photos before it resumed its underwater hunting.  So now I have my photo(s)!

I’m having a difficult time returning to photos I took in January and February because I continue to obtain good current photographs.

Over the past two days (March 15-16) I’ve been able to spend considerable time at photography due to the improved weather.  Here are a few of the results…

A couple of months ago I was asked what the difference was between the two most numerous species of chickadees was.  The first bird pictured here is the Black–capped chickadee, a bird that generally prefers deciduous habitats.  The second bird pictured is a Chestnut-backed chickadee, a bird that generally prefers conifers.  We have both at my house (where both of these photos were taken but in the more forested areas (such as WA Park where I walk mornings) I usually see only the Chestnut-backed chickadees.  We also have a rather rare visitor from higher elevations, the Mountain chickadee, but I’m still waiting for the first one to visit my yard.  I did see a Mountain chickadee in WA Park many years ago.

This next bird is a Pine siskin.  We had many in the yard around the start of the winter and then they ALL disappeared.  Some are now making a comeback.  I’ve often wondered about the birds’ breeding habits and yesterday observed one gathering moss/lichen and flying high into the fir trees with it.  I highly suspect that it was building a nest with the material.

As I believe I’ve written before, we’ve had at least one Dark-eyed junco of the Slate-colored race overwinter with us here for the past 7=8 years.  (I’m sure it’s not the same bird!)  I love looking at the junco photos because of the birds’ feather patterns on their mantles.  If you look closely at this photo (double-click on it) you can see how neatly all the feathers are laid.

Moving on to the Cap Sante Marina, I found one (or possibly two) Common loons preening at a couple of different locations.  I managed to observe (and photograph) the bird rising from the water to stretch its wings on four different occasions.  This bird is just coming into its breeding plumage, at which point it will exhibit a spectacular appearance.   (Consult your field guide if you are unfamiliar with its breeding plumage.)  Unfortunately, in prior years I’ve found that just as the birds are about to reach their full potential they leave the marina area.  I find it interesting that the loons are one of the few waterfowl that I see searching for prey from the surface of the water.  They stick their head under water while swimming, surveying the depths below.