I guess that technically it is still summer, but our weather of late is sliding into fall.  I spent about five hours outside Saturday (9/5/2015) and had a considerable number of photos to show for it.  I photographed two noteworthy visitors… a Stellar’s jay and a Black-throated Gray warbler.  It’s probably been over a year since a Stellar’s jay has visited the yard and I can’t understand why.  We seem to have good habitat.  I’ve often thought that the jays we have make an occasional foray across the channel from Guemes since I have friends over there who have them and I seldom see them on our island (Fidalgo).

The second rarity, the Black-throated Gray warbler, was here for an extended time last summer and usually enjoyed bathing in our watercourse several times a day.  We had probably had them in the past but I probably failed to pick them out of all the Black-capped chickadees, of which we have many.  My guess is that this is a juvenile.  There are at least two in the yard at the same time, and possibly more.

Other birds I photographed… a male Anna’s hummingbird and a White-crowned sparrow.

End of summer visitors detracted from the amount of time I had for birding activities this past week.  And I don’t appear to be attracting any interesting fall visitors to the yard.  But it’s hard to keep a dedicated bird photographer down!

The American goldfinches are still around, but I note that the vast majority are juveniles that came into being this year.  Some of them, such as this juvenile morphing into male plumage, are pretty rough looking.

And not content to share the same perch, this juvenile is giving a not-so-subtle hint to its temporary perch-mate.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a Rufous hummingbird in the yard, but we still have a couple of Anna’s hummingbirds.  While I’m not sure as to the sex of the first bird, I’m fairly certain that the second (with the red salvia) is a male.

And of final interest in the yard, while we were without Northern Flickers all summer, we’re now having visits from both juvenile males and females.  We lost our big dead pine tree (it fell over!) which was our primary staging structure for the flickers, but they are adapting very well to the new habitat.  This is one of the juvenile males.

It’s a new day for this blog and long overdue!  This month (August, 2015) I finally stumbled onto a process that allows users to sign up for any new posts to my blog.  It’s been a long, frustrating experience but now the process has been unscientifically tested and it appears to be working.  So if you want to receive notification by email that I’ve posted a new blog simply place your email address in the box at the bottom of the screen.  I thought that the box only appeared on the Welcome screen but it appears it might also be at the end of each of the blog post screens.

And the two birds pictured above?  The first is a Pelagic cormorant which earlier this season had a distinctive white patch on each side of its rump just behind its wings.  It’s now in its non-breeding plumage and we won’t see the white patch until next year.

The second bird is a Double-crested cormorant, distinctive due to the yellow on its head.

Happy birding!

Monday, August 17 offered another day for birding.  I spent a couple of hours at the previously mentioned wetland photographing… what else but American goldfinches.  I’ve really gotten rather tired of photographing them, but as I’ve said previously, there’s always something to learn.  Neither the goldfinches nor the thistles will be with us that much longer, so I continue to take photographs.  Besides… the goldfinches offer a good way to fill in the time between sightings of other rarer birds.

While monitoring the wetland I also saw a female Black-headed grosbeak, an Olive-sided flycatcher, a Pacific Slope flycatcher and at least four female/juvenile Western tanagers, one or more of which is pictured below.

I rounded out the day by performing a little skeet shooting on a headland of Fidalgo Bay… and considering my luck, am determined to return for a little more.

I think I’m on the verge of having my site notify subscribers of new posts via email.  You can try out the new feature by entering your mail code in the box at the bottom of this, or my site’s “Welcome” page.

With an overcast morning I was looking forward to a better photography experience.  Before I even got out of the house I spied a Cedar waxwing in the watercourse, a relative rarity.  I sneaked out of the house, usually an unsuccessful tactic, but in that case managed several photos of the waxwing before it left the yard.

I returned to the wetland I mentioned in my prior post but it was curiously devoid of birds.  I waited around for over an hour before a few American goldfinches returned to feed on thistle seeds.  I took some additional photos of them feeding.

I returned home and gave up birding for awhile, but then my wife spotted what she thought was an Orange-crowned warbler.  Upon closer examination I thought it might have been a vireo.  I made for the yard with my camera but the bird flew before I could photograph it or get a better view for a positive identification.  However I remained in the yard to see if it might return.

A short time later a female Wilson’s warbler entered the yard and eventually flew to the watercourse.  I obtained several good photos before it left.

And after all of the activity was over, my wife told me that a hawk (undoubtedly an accipiter) had entered the yard right after I initially left that morning.

And finally, a male Spotted towhee, whose kin have been quite shy this summer, emerged on a log where I could photograph it.  This one looks like it might have been fresh off a bath.