Tiny Violet and Small Blurry Birds

I've just begun stitching Blackbird Design's violet.

Love the colors.

I mentioned yesterday that I'd seen several birds on my recent walk.

As I left the house, a female Flicker was hard at work at the suet feeder. 

And the hummingbird feeders were active too.  There are now enough hummingbirds in the area that I can watch Feeder Fights! This is a male Anna's Hummingbird.

And here's a female Rufous Hummingbird. I saw a couple of Rufous Hummingbirds on my walk - but no photos.

Kinglets are difficult birds to photograph as they rarely stay still. 

I misspoke when I said there were Hutton's Vireos in the plum tree. As it turns out, there were Ruby-crowned Kinglets!  You can see a small flash of red on the top of this one's head back of its eye.

Later in my walk I came across a group of Golden-crowned Kinglets. Once again, tough birds to photograph. 

See the bright yellow patch atop the head?

I heard a very soft tap-tap-tapping and found this Red-breasted Sapsucker hard at work opening up new wells. You can see the brighter colored newly drilled holes to the left of the bird. 

It looks like this tree is going to become a 'regular' belly-up-to-the-bar for the bird.

And here's my latest New Bird!

A Brown Creeper.

Nope, the photo is not upside down, the bird is! Brown Creepers work trees in a spiral searching for small insects and spiders. They are weak fliers, and fly to the base of a new tree then work their way up in circles looking for food. They prefer to work on very large trees, and According to All About Birds: Brown Creepers burn an estimated 4–10 calories per day, a tiny fraction of a human’s daily intake of about 2,000 calories. By eating a single spider, a creeper gains enough energy to climb nearly 200 feet vertically.

At the Quarry Pond I came across my new trio - the turtle and the Mallard couple. 

It turned into a very nice sunny afternoon. As I walked up the steep part of our driveway, I came across a pair of Bewick's Wrens enjoying refreshing dust baths.

I stayed back from them, but they appeared unconcerned.

Their long upright striped tail and white eyebrow make them easy to identify.

Our California Quail and brush bunnies are also big fans of dust baths. I think I prefer water to dust for my bath, though the wrens seemed very content.

As evening arrived my small flock of Bushtits came by.

They used to show up around 4:00pm, but now with longer days it is 6:00pm

I'd missed seeing them for a couple of weeks.