Day 18.115: Backyard surprises (part 1)

Yesterday, I looked out at the bird feeders but something else caught my eye - a small bird moving around on the trunk of a tree. I thought it might be a red-breasted nuthatch or a brown creeper, but it turned out to be a black-and-white warbler.

As I was watching it, another movement caught my eye and it turned out that one of our neighborhood broad-winged hawks came in to land quite close and with a clear line-of-sight, so I got some of my best photos yet.

After a few minutes it puffed up its feathers and did some deep preening:

Before flattening them down again to prepare to depart:

And then, as I came inside, I saw a ruby-throated hummingbird come to investigate the bird feeder (first sighting of the year) - sadly, despite its red roof, the seeds inside were not what the hummingbird was looking for.

We had more surprises today, but I'll save them for later in the week.