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American yellow warbler
This morning, there was a flurry of activity in my backyard avian sanctuary.
I’ve been confined to the house by a monstrous flu bug, so feeling well enough to take my breakfast on the little deck, overlooking the waterfall, was particularly enjoyable. The weather has been summery throughout May, with temperatures 2-3 degrees above normal.
The usual sparrows swarmed about the feeder — adults feeding fledglings — while the odd nuthatch and chickadee took to the water feature for their morning ablutions, splashing jewels of water droplets into the slanting sunlight.
These were soon joined by an Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna), buzzing between nearby mock orange blossoms and the cascading water. I was hoping she would perform the bathing ritual I’ve seen before, but never captured in photo or video: grasping the lip of the upper waterfall, letting the water cascade around her body — a critical behaviour for hummingbirds, to wash sticky nectar from their feathers.
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Anna’s hummingbird
Then, a flash of canary yellow. What was that? The golden bullet disappeared over the bamboo fence.
If whatever it was decided to return, I’d be ready. Last year, I think I glimpsed the same bird, but never had a chance to make a photograph. I climbed up to my third-floor studio and grabbed the Nikon D800, attaching a TC-20E III 2x Teleconverter and AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II lens. Where’s my tripod? Back up the stairs.
Settling in behind my chair, tea at hand, I waited for a reappearance of the mystery songbird.
The yellow warbler (Dendroica petechia) is not a particularly rare bird, breeding in the whole of temperate North America as far south as Mexico, wintering in Central and South America. Nonetheless, like many other songbirds, it is in decline.
It’s certainly not every day a spectacular specimen of this species turns up in the yard. But here he was again. As he grew bolder, hopping out from behind the “creekside” sedges, I tried to make myself inconspicuous behind the camera and tripod. In the end, he approached a mere 3 metres away from my position, preoccupied with bathing and rehydrating.
I made a few acceptable photos of the hummingbird, sparrows, nuthatch and our vibrant warbler. I think he deserves a place in the fauna gallery, don’t you?
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On the fence
Arthur Parker - Great photographs Raymond. As always. What I still cannot get over is the fact that you have humming birds. A thing that I never realised until I saw a post. You certainly have beautiful things going on in your garden.
You mention the fact that there is a decline in your bird population. Where I live we rarely see ANY birds in our garden, where a few years ago we had numerous varieties, now only Ringed Doves aka Wood Pigeons which once you only saw in the country. Even the Eurasian Collared Dove, which adopted full residency have disappeared. We don’t even get Starlings or Sparrows. We rarely get a sighting of a Blackbird. The various types of Tits and Finches, Wrens and Thrushes haven’t been sighted for years. Another bird, once only seen in the country, the Magpie, wreck nests and take the eggs and young. They used to be classed as vermin and were killed. Now they are protected and have come into the towns to wreak havoc. Beautiful birds but killers of other species. Nature I suppose.May 9, 2020 – 2:40 am
Raymond Parker - Thank you, Arthur. It goes without saying that we, as the dominant species, have messed with nature in a monumental fashion. I’m sad to hear your report on the birds of my childhood home. It is there, exploring the hedgerows and remnant oak forest around Wednesfield, that I fell in love with our avian companions (in addition to my little yellow budgie).
The two most common hummingbird species in British Columbia are the Rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) and Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna).
The Anna’s are resident year-round on the southern end of Vancouver Island, while the rufous buggers off to Mexico for the winter, like a lot of Homo sapien retirees (cootus oldus).
The hummingbirds zoom around all day ― if only we had their energy 🙂 ― but seem to congregate at the feeder en masse when we sit down for supper, delighting us with their antics.
What was surprising about that urban garden was just how many species visited, right in the city, albeit situated close to the ocean. We didn’t see a greater variety at our next location, situated adjacent to an oasis of at-risk Garry oak forest.
I can’t say we’ve seen more species out here in the boonies, though there are certainly more hawks, bald eagles and turkey vultures that circle overhead all through the summer. The latter have just returned in number from their southern sojourn. They always seem to circle overhead in gyres a dozen strong when I’m working in the garden, causing me to shout “I’m not quite dead yet!” We also have the delightful California quail in abundance. They like to perch on our fence, making their distinctive call, or run across the lawn in flocks of a dozen or more.
Down on the beaches, we have another universe of seabirds to observe.
We’re not free from invasive species, either. Not by a long shot. Thanks to various immigrants who weren’t satisfied with the abundance of endemic flora and fauna. The worst invasive plant here on the island is broom ― In fact, the source of today’s plague can be traced back to Captain Walter Colquhoun Grant, who planted seeds in Sooke, in the 1850s. It springs up in any open space, including the lower “undeveloped” area of our new property. Sure, it’s pretty in blossom.If you were to fly over the island right now, you’d see a network of acid yellow veins …which reminds me, I have to get down there with the big cutters, before the pods explode and set a new crop. Then there’s purple loosetrife, Himalayan blackberry, and don’t get me started on the English ivy, which chokes every area of forest in which it gains hold.
In the avian family, we have starlings galore, introduced by Shakespeare enthusiasts in 1890 in New York’s Central Park. Now the whole continent shares that Midsummer’s Nightmare. There are European house sparrows aplenty, which take over feeders, and, of course, the rock pigeon. Luckily, they stick to the village.We must have adopted your Eurasian collared-coves; to the dismay of biologists, they are established and expanding their range. The common, though rather attractive house finch expanded its range naturally, if the clearing of forest can be considered a natural occurrence.
But, by far the greatest threat to our songbird populations is the domestic cat, who kill an estimated 1.3–4.0 billion birds annually, in the US alone. Canadian figures range between 100–350 million.May 9, 2020 – 9:22 am
Arthur. - Crikey Raymond I would have to get in my car and drive a few miles to see anything like as many different species as you have in your garden. Then they wouldn’t be quite as exotic.
Having said that, within a half hour or so in any direction from home we have some amazing countryside and an hour puts us in Church Stretton and Cardingmill Valley on the Shropshire Welsh borders to the West. Then to the East also about an hour away there is the Peak District and a couple of hours North the Lakes. All three beautiful. Snowdonia nowadays is only a couple of hours away by car.
The vastness and beauty of Canada is something we obviously don’t have. I would love to have travelled by rail from the East to West or West to East as I saw on Michael Portillo’s rail journeys. He’s a lucky man. Getting paid to travel all around the world.
Getting back to the birds. As you say, no doubt cats do play a big part in the demise of our feathered friends and I don’t have any figures for this country, but having said that we had quite as many cats in our area if not more when we moved here 56 years ago and our garden was full of birds of all kinds as I described before. In fact we ourselves had three cats. On reflection, I can remember only a couple of times our cats coming home with a bird and they were ‘spoken to’. Funny that. They were obviously paying attention.lol.May 10, 2020 – 4:57 am
Raymond Parker - Well, Arthur, I envy your proximity to beautiful Church Stretton. Wish I could cycle out there on a weekend. I did just that, from Wednesfield, at the age of 12, dragging along an unwary classmate ― Chatwall, to be exact. I think that hill out of Bridgenorth is still imprinted in my quadriceps! 🙂 I’d spent the previous summer there, at Auntie Rita’s place, helping restore various elements of that 400-year-old farm.
When I think of that bike escapade now, it seems amazing that, at that age, I cycled over 90 kms. Not so much the horizontal distance as the vertical. I think that’s what gave me a penchant for suffering in the saddle, which prepared me for the mountains of British Columbia.
Back to birds: Yesterday afternoon, resting on the patio after battling the blooming (in both senses) broom at the bottom “undeveloped” area of the garden, two canary yellow American goldfinches visited, sitting in one of the olive trees, singing as if their lives depended on it. Speaking of garden labour, I know what you mean. This aging stuff is for the birds!
And a last word on cats. When Amanda and I met, she had a grey mackerel tabby, Pashme (Furry, in Farsi). He didn’t know he was supposed to eat birds. The regulars at the feeder figured out he was no threat and would happily perch on the arm of the deck chair he napped on.May 10, 2020 – 7:46 am