White-throated Sparrow

White-throated Sparrows have been reported all over OBOL land (Oregon Birders On Line) and I was excited to have one show up here last fall. Then it disappeared. Then another reappeared, but the new one was a white-striped color morph while the first one had been a tan-stripe. Then the white-stripe disappeared and a tan one reappeared. Now a white-stripe is back. Or maybe has been here but they don't come out to eat on the same day? Or maybe these White-throated Sparrows move from place to place and the ones we see one day are not the ones we see the next day. Who knows. Here is the current version on our farm.

Ferruginous Hawk

Paul Sullivan and Carol Karlen have been seeing a Ferruginous Hawk in a field close to Hwy 18 southwest of McMinnville for months. I have seen it several times on my travels to and from McMinnville but it is too far for a good photo. Here is the best I've taken so far, taken from the Erratic Rock parking lot on Oldsville Rd. across the highway from the hawk field (that also has Rough-legs and Red-tails and often a cruising Peregrine). Look for the light-headed hawk with the white breast and light belly. The Rough-legs have dark bellies.

Here's a photo taken on Jan. 15, when it was closer. Still blurry in my camera, though.

Apple Tree Birds

Now I know what birds eat on cold, rainy days in December. At least, some birds. They eat the apples on the tree outside our back door. Or the apples on the ground under the tree outside our back door. Today, from the dry sanctuary of our stair landing, I photographed that tree with Varied Thrushes, Golden-crowned Sparrows, Spotted Towhees and even a Downy Woodpecker in it, although the woodpecker was pecking at the branch not the apples. Here's the scraggly old apple tree with its wonderful apples (my favorites and the birds' favorites, too.) There are at least four birds in this photo. Can you find them?

I'll make it easier. A Golden-crowned Sparrow is in the left bottom quadrant. Another is slightly right of center above a female and a male Varied Thrush. Here they are closer.





















Mostly, there were Varied Thrushes. Lots of them. Females with their gray breastbands and males with their black ones... all eating my favorite winter apples.

Other birds came and went (when told to by the thrushes), like this Golden-crowned Sparrow.

And the Spotted Towhee who dove inside this apple.














Even a Downy Woodpecker visited in the fifteen minutes I stood taking photos. Although it had rained all day and was raining then, the only bird looking really damp was the woodpecker. Maybe he was just having a bad hair day.

The ground beneath the tree is littered with apples, too. We've had such an incredibly heavy crop of apples on all our trees that deer, bears, raccoons, coyotes, and every other wild thing on our farm have had more than they could eat on the more distant trees and have not bothered to come into the yard. Our golden delicious tree out front has dumped its apples all over the ground but the birds are not so interested in those. They like my favorite red apples outside my back door, especially now that the weekend wind knocked many down and frost and rain have softened them. I managed to get one bucket full picked and saved in the house before the birds destroyed them.

Here a sparrow is caught in the act... in the center of the photo. And closer here:

But mostly on the ground, as in the tree, eating those delectable apples were Varied Thrushes.

                                                                     Who? Me?

                                                                          Tough.

Oh well. Happy holidays, birds!

Pileated Post

My computer has been on vacation for nine days but my camera was not. Hundreds of photos were waiting to be uploaded, including this one of a Pileated Woodpecker working on a snag in our woods. This snag has been so stripped by Pileateds that it's hard to tell what's left to demolish. I will have to fight my way through the underbrush to the side this bird was working on to see what's there. Here is a video I took of him at work. http://youtu.be/WEVrL4s6SJ8  The red cheek stripe says it's a male; the light eye makes it an adult.

An October Gift

Today was a gift... a day of warmth and no rain after predictions of all day dampness. It's always a gift when friends from the coast join me for a day of local birding. To have a good weather day this time of year, and plenty of good birds, makes an even more memorable gift. The only thing lacking was decent photos from me. However, I've decided to consider these photos impressionist paintings, rather than "bird photos".

Our first stop found White Wing, the impossibly beautiful Red-tailed Hawk with white wings that has hunted for many years near the Nazarene Church in Grand Ronde. Today he was bright in the unexpected late October sunshine. 

I did not even try for photos at Shenk Wetlands, where we found two very distant White-tailed Kites. I tried, however, for a photo of a light phase, juvenile Rough-legged Hawk, one of several at what we have come to call Carol and Paul's Raptor Field. Paul and Carol discovered dozens of raptors hanging out in this sheep field some weeks ago and raptors are still there, running along catching somethings in the grass. The view is a long one and so the photos blurred... or impressionistic.

At McKee road pond by Amity, the shorebirds that have been there not long ago are gone now, with the rising water. But we found these two Western Bluebirds, their soft colors blending with the autumn scene.

 Another Rough-leg hovered in front of us on Farmer Rd., near Baskett Slough Wildlife Refuge (although you couldn't prove its identity with this photo).

At The Narrows on Coville Rd. in Baskett Slough, a Glaucous-winged Gull posed.

All the rest of the birds at The Narrows became Impressionist photo paintings in my hands... published here just so I can look back and remember the gift of this day.

A real photographer stopped by to see what we were looking at. I couldn't resist taking a photo of the huge lens hanging out his driver side window. You can bet his photos are in focus.

We headed homeward then, passing carpets of Canada Geese and Cacklers that winter on this refuge.

It's pouring rain again tonight. But today was warm and dry and lovely, an October gift.

I Am a Pine Cone, Not a Barn Owl

One of our fledgling Barn Owls spent the day in a dead tree right outside the barn. Crows dived at him in the morning fog, but he didn't move and they soon gave up and left him (her?) alone. As the day cleared, baby down feathers on his shoulders became obvious. He is still a very new fledgling. He never moved all day long, not through periods of rain and wind, not when the sun made his warm golden colors even more obvious, not when a family of seven with three loudly excited young children came to visit the farm animals... and admire the stoic baby owl. Not even when the sky turned pink behind him did the owl move. But as the sky darkened, his siblings still in the nest box in the barn loft began their begging calls. Then the owl slowly began to wake up, rocking back and forth gently, stopping for long minutes, then rocking again, until finally, when the sky was too dark for photos, he began preening and exercising his wings... nearly falling off the branch in the process. Then he began his begging calls in earnest. At 6:45 p.m., sky dark, he flew to the peak of the new barn.

His rocking wake-up:  http://youtu.be/QA8XLp8tk6Y
His begging calls: http://youtu.be/aYfNlM7YWSw

What Is This Hawk?

This hawk was sitting upright on power lines next to a field at the corner of Grand Ronde and Hebo roads. The field had recently been baled and had several large haystacks, each with a Red-tailed Hawk atop that periodically swooped down to nab something in the field. There was no place to pull over when I saw this bird on the wire so Johnny put on his flashers and sat in the middle of the road while I took a photo out the windshield. Just as I took the picture, the hawk leaned forward and lifted its wings, as in this photo, and took off. It flew out in a half circle and landed back on the wire in front of us but there were cars coming both directions so we left. The photo was taken at 6:15 p.m. with the sun low in the sky shining on the back of the hawk. I *think* that's the reason for the apparent white speckles on the feathers of the wing. I thought I knew what this was at the time so we went on home after a long day of birding for the Yamhill County NAMC to see if any birds had shown up at our farm that were not around in the morning before we left. Now that I see this photo, I'm not so sure my id was correct.

I would *really* appreciate any comments as to what this hawk is and why. Thanks in advance!