April | 2020 | Sauntering Birder

Our yard continues to yield new “quarantine” bird species almost every day. A few of these have been new yard species, too. We have been at this location for almost 1 year.

Yesterday on the way back from my daily morning coffee walk around my neighborhood, I saw a Chipping Sparrow in our next-door neighbour’s flowering dogwood tree. I slowly walked past the tree and onto our driveway. Chipper was still in the tree! Bam! Yard bird #78! Sadly I have no photograph of Chipper because I don’t bring such luxuries as a camera on my morning coffee walk. I’m fresh out of bed and ~~usually~~ in my PJs.

Last weekend, a new and quite surprising yard bird, a Greater Yellowlegs, flew along Lacamas Creek and wadded around long enough for me to get a few terrible photos from my office window.

Other highlights from this past week included my yard’s second Lincoln’s Sparrow and yard’s first Brown-headed Cowbird.

As of yesterday, my total yard count is at 79 species and my quarantine list is at 58 species.

Here is a photo blog update of some of the birdy highlights, new and old, from our yard over the past week and a half.

White-crowned Sparrow. I *believe* this is the Gambel’s subspecies because of its pale lore. If this is correct, I suspect most of the WCSPs in my yard right now are Gambel’s. Camas, WA. April 2020.

My second yard Lincoln’s Sparrow. Camas, WA. April 2020.

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s), probably a female. **New yard bird #74.** I’ve had little flocks of 12 to 30 pass through our yard this past week. Camas, WA. April 2020.

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s), probably a female. I’ve had little flocks of 12 to 30 pass through our yard this past week. **New yard bird #74.** Camas, WA. April 2020.

Greater Yellowlegs, taken from my office window. **New yard bird #78.** Lacamas Creek. Camas, WA. April 2020.

Steller’s Jay, after sending a pile of American Goldfinches off into the trees. Camas, WA. April 2020.

Brown-headed Cowbird. **New yard bird #77**. Camas, WA. April 2020.

Quarantined birding for me isn’t much different from non-quarantined birding. We live on a bluff overlooking a creek, river, and ash-dominated floodplain, and I’ve worked from home full-time, in this location, for nearly 1 year. It’s backyard birding as usual except that now it’s spring, so the migrants are passing through (north [or up]) and the residents are setting up territories and building nests.

My office view of my backyard; April 14, 2020; Camas, WA.

On March 24, 5MR Jen kicked off a yard challenge. This generally means counting birds you see or hear in or from your yard. Because I work from home, this feels like one very long birding point count, but with long, nighttime breaks for sleep and many breaks during the day for cheese and crackers (many).

I’ve been participating in this yard challenge since March 24. My office window faces our backyard and my feeders. During the day, I catch what I can while I’m working. After work, I sit outside and catch the late afternoon/evening bird activity.

As of today, April 14, my yard challenge list since March 24 is 47 species.

Here’s a selection of yard birds that I was able to capture with my pretty basic camera. Check out my YouTube channel for videos of a Varied Thrush and a Fox Sparrow.