2019 was a good year of birding for me. As I write it is December 1st, and I reached seeing over 300 species here in Oregon for the first time. In actuality, I have never tried to do such, but found that I birded here and there throughout the year, saw a few rare birds as well as many common ones. It is not that difficult to reach the 300 mark annually - one simply has to get out there often and hit the coast, mountains, deserts and in-between a few times. A birding friend of mine went all out and currently has 355. The record is 381 or so.
I also got some great photographs of species which I have really wanted to obtain, such as Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, Ruffed Grouse and Snow Bunting. I believe that if you are on this list, you have already seen these. You remember the story of me taking some 650 pics of the Rosy Finch, right? I am still stoked about that experience and occasionally joke about all those pics with my birding friends.
So here are a few pics from the latter part of this year. I included the Rosy Finches, Snow Bunting and Ruffed Grouse, since they were recent highlights of which most of you have already seen.
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| Pacific Wren on the coast |
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| Western Chipmunk at the coast |
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| Stellar's Jay at my feeder |
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| Female Kestrel. These are notoriously hard to get close enough for a good photo |
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| Just another Bald Eagle. A pair lives about 6 miles from my home and this is one of them. |
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| Fox Sparrow at the coast |
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| Burrowing Owl. A rare winter visitant to the Willamette Valley |
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| Ruffed Grouse |
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| American Water Pipit along Livermore Rd. I was looking for Longspurs and Snow Buntings. I did hear a Longspur among the 300 or so pipits |
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| Did you know Great Blue Herons enjoy the beach? |
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| They even like playing in the surf |
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| Killdeer on the coast |
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Gray-crowned Rosy Finch. I just cannot get enough of a good thing.
This photo now serves as the wallpaper on my PC. So I see it almost every day. |
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| Stellar's Jay near my feeder. |
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| This may be the same bird as in the last pic. Our expert hunter cat "Tux" captured this bird (or one of the others) and ran off, around to the front of our house where I ran after him planning on releasing him, if I could. Tux was about to run under the front porch to enjoy his meal where he would be out of my reach, but as he was just about to go under, he must have released his grip, and the bird flew off, vocalizing as he went. Tux was then seen to climb 2/3 up a cedar in the front yard looking for him. One lucky bird! |
As there have been some rare birds near Portland, I decided to see if my friend Aaron Beerman, who lives there, was free to assist me in finding some. He was, and we spent Tuesday December 3rd birding there. The 2 rare geese species we did not find, but we did relocate the Black and White Warbler, and so here are 3 pics of him, a rare vagrant to Oregon. We birded on Sauvie Island, just a great place for wintering waterfowl, cranes, herons and sparrows.
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| Black and White Warbler |
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| Black and White Warbler |
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| Black and White Warbler |
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| Townsend's Warbler |
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| Red-breasted Sapsucker |
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| Snow Geese |
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| Prairie Falcon |
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Anna's Hummingbird. Appears to be our resident male, who also looks to be injured.
He may have flown into the winder protecting "his" feeder. |
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| Same as above |
I hope your screen allows you to make the last 2 photos into a full screen. The colors of the hummers bib and their set up around his head at simply stunning. These pics are of him sitting on our block wall about 20 feet from his feeder. When I see a hummer sitting where he normally does not, I suspect he is hurt, which appears to be the case. Some of the other pics show him closing his eyes for seconds at a time, which a hummer never does in the day time. So I am interested to know if he will show up tomorrow. He has been the solo hummer at our feeder for a month or more, likely having chased off the others. But yesterday we saw another one there. I only got brief glimpses of the other one which looked like a probable female. I'll try to remember to fill you in before I send this out after New Year's Day.
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| Snow Bunting. This particular picture graces the background of our computer at present, since I think it is the best one of the bunch of that species. From September into early November this spot was occupied by a photo of a Black Rosy Finch. In November it was replaced by a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, then a Ruffed Grouse, and now this one. |
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| Buster the Cat |
I thought I'd include one last pic here. This is Buster, who prefers sleeping on his back, kind of odd for a cat. Just yesterday we had a Christmas get together at our place and one family brought their dog. Buster is deathly afraid of dogs, so when he saw the dog he raced for the nearest tree and started climbing. Not knowing that dogs cannot climb, began climbing higher and higher. When he was about 30 feet high, he slipped and came sailing to the ground. I saw the whole thing, and was quite worried that he would break a bone or at least get hurt, but when he hit the ground he took off running, and we did not see him again until late last night. After handling him it was great to see he was OK. Long live Buster!
12/30/19
Today was to be the last dry day for a while in Western Oregon. And as there was a rare bird over at the coast, I made plans to go there to look for the Hooded Oriole, a bright adult male. We figured out he was visiting at least 3 hummingbird feeders that we were aware of, and while we were waiting at one, he, of course would be at another, or somewhere else. So I only got a couple short glimpses of him, and no pictures. A birder I met by the name of Mark got a decent one, so I’m hoping to post his best one. Otherwise, here are a few I took while waiting in the area.
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| Chestnut-sided Chickadee |
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| A male Townsend's Warbler coming to suet |
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| Surfbird |
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| Black Turnstone |
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| Hooded Oriole. Picture by Mark Ludwick. Isn't he a beauty! |
That is it for this year. We hope the coming year of 2020 will be a good one for you. Take care and God Bless.
