2019 Continued

Well, my jaunt was shortened quite a bit.  Rosie told me NOT to take the truck where I should not, but I disobeyed and pulled a dumb stunt, and had to return home for repairs.  Not sure if I will get them done in time to get back out there, so here are some new pics in the meantime:

One of the local Violet-green Swallows.  At least one pair will be nesting at our place.

American Robin with food.

Male California Quail at our feeding station

Female California Quail at our feeding station

Western Bluebird.  If our cats leave them alone, a pair will nest here for the 3rd year.

A pair of Blue-winged Teal at the local refuge

Yellow-headed Blackbird.  Am having fun trying to capture birds in flight

Wandering Tattler.  A pair showed up at some sewage ponds just south in Benton County, a first county record.  Except for the rare inland vagrant in fall, they always hug the coast in migration in both spring and fall.  

Female Northern Harrier 

A pair is nesting right next to the road at the refuge, in the same place they did last year. 

Western Grebe

6/5/19  I had the opportunity of heading a few hours south of where I live to go out with a friend on a short Spotted Owl foray.  Two of the young birders heading down there could not leave until their college classes were done for the day, so they and another birder and I could not leave until 2:00 PM.  We have a good friend who works for the BLM with Spotted Owl management, and this was in the plans for some time.  He was able to locate the female of a pair quite easily, and we were treated to some close up views and opportunity for pictures.

Probably most of your have heard that this species is considered endangered, which makes it all the more intriguing.  There are reasons for such which I’ll explain.  Loss of habitat has been the obvious one.  They prefer old growth forests here in the NW, of which very little remains.  And what does remain is fragmented and protected.  The more recent threat is the range expansion of the Barred Owl, a common owl of the east which has moved west in the last two decades.  They are larger, more adaptable, and so aggressive that they have been usurping the Spotted Owls from their territories.  So in the last few years federal agencies have embarked on a mission to eradicate the Barred Owls by simply shooting them.  This is in the early stages and has only been tried in a few parts of the range of the Spotted Owl.  

One last bit of information which is not well known, which also does not help the Spotted Owl is that they are quite unwary.  They simply don’t spook easy or fly off like most other wildlife.  In fact, the Indians had a name for them which meant something like “stupid bird.”  It appears they are not wary of predators very much either, so the young are usually eaten by Great Horned Owls, Goshawks, and other birds of prey.   But at least this makes it easier for wildlife technicians to monitor them.  Part of their protocol is to feed them mice.  If the owls have young, they will take the mice to the nest to feed the young, and so the techs can then tag and follow the new birds.  You will notice one of my pics has the bird flying off with a mouse.  

Well, it was a fun day.  I ended up adding a few others to my Douglas County list as well, leaving my just 4 shy of the 200 level, so I suspect I may get back there and put in a little effort to reach it soon.

Spotted Owl.  Can you see the spots on the back of his head?

6/7/19
Cassin's Vireo is a relatively common bird in Western Oregon, but it had eluded my camera, until today.   Rosie and I went looking for a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak just south in Benton County on our day off, and while we did not have success, one consolation was being able to take  a decent pic of this bird.  The lighting as not very good and I had to spruce it up a little with the photo software.  It is really not quite this yellow on the undersides, but it is the best I could make it for now.

Cassin's Vireo

6/11/19
It is slated to quite hot in this 4 days stretch, so I decided to go over to the coast birding and try to add a few to the adjacent county - Lincoln.  I was highly successful in adding 5 species.  No pics of any of those 5 but here is a Great-blue Heron, and finally a decent pic of a Cedar Waxwing.

Great-blue Heron

Cedar Waxwing

I have decided to post these pics as I am heading out on a short jaunt to an eastern county Tuesday, and plan to start another blog with pics.