Dining Room Window, Yard List Magic

Not wearing mutton chop whiskers...
is standing in front of a white blossom

A few weeks ago a distinctive 'Chip! Chip! Chip! Chip....!' rang out from trees near the cottage. The bird remained hidden but I thought it was probably a Chipping Sparrow

A couple of days later I sat in my dining room facing the orchard. A small pale chested sparrow was hopping along the driveway, and my first

thought was 'White-throated Sparrow!'. I know. Wrong. But I was hoping the pale bits included a white throat. It did, but it also included a black eye stripe and a  Weasley-red cap and that cinched its identification as a Chipping Sparrow: new yard bird number 49! 

The photos here are dingy, but then they were shot through a dingy window.

That brings me to early May, sitting at dinner with two friends in the hours approaching twilight, when I spotted a banded, fanned tail of a hawk, shooting up into an orchard tree. I shrieked, scaring the crap out of my friends. A small accipiter hawk was bouncing merrily around in an apple tree. Grabbing my camera for several spectacularly blurry and blotchty shot through yee old dining room window.

Hawk hunched over, facing left, yellow talons

Facing right, looking down, talons on branch

Facing left, bent over downward, with head held
lower than the yellow talons, horizontal tail at far right. 

Upright, facing left, head obscured by branches

So crap photos, but good enough for an identification. While it was in the tree I was certain it was a Sharp-shined hawk, but after the bird flew off I took a good look at the photos. It has distinctive, reddish barred thighs (Sharpies barely show their thighs, which sit higher up on the leg) and the legs are fairly buff in general - Cooper's Hawk. A small one at that so probably a male. Yard bird #50, WOOO HOOO!

That brings us to surprise yard bird #51, spotted flitting about the orchard, looking at first to me like a Yellow Warbler, until I got the binocs out and saw the warbler's cute black hat - a Wilson's Warbler. The bird, which was again photographed through the dining room window was also a first for my Washington State list.

That brings my Yard Bird tally up to 51 birdies - Yippy Skippy! This is all terribly exciting, as I've been in this house for just over 2 years and I'm up to 51 species. For comparison, when I lived in Fair Oaks, California it took me 23 years to get to 47 species.