The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

One of the yard’s more colorful winter visitors, the season’s first Western Bluebird alights in the apple tree.

October 30, 2022

After nearly two harrowing weeks, Dick Shelton is home from the hospital.  His new heart valve is functioning perfectly.  Unfortunately, so is the Foley catheter. Ouch.  Hopefully, this is only temporary.

I give the morning to myself and watch birds.  Ruby-crowned kinglets and Townsend’s warblers pinch insects from apple bark, outnumbered and outmaneuvered only the recent uptick of “butter butts” (yellow-rumped warblers).  Ripe elderberries rain onto the metal roof of the porch, the purple fruits knocked loose by feeding robins, solitaires, thrushes, and tanagers.

A Yellow-rumped Warbler in winter colors.

Hermit Thrushes skulk around the yard all winter.

A year-round visitor to the yard, a female Hepatic Tanager stops at the fountain for a drink.

The yard will finish the month with 81 species, the last arriving unexpectedly just now to buoy my spirits.  If all goes well with my friend, my next post will showcase the shorebirds of Dana Point, California, where the wife and I will celebrate our birthdays by soaking our skin in the salty air.  For now, I leave you with today’s western bluebirds.

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