Birds That I'm Glad Are Not Bigger

First in this category has to be Great Blue Heron. I used to think it was cool that we had a supposedly shy heron eating voles in our fields. But that Heron did not stay in the fields. He (she? but I named it Harry)  now spends most of  his time in our pond, eating newts and frogs. And he is anything but shy. I have a photo of him by the back door... somewhere on my computer. Also in the barn yard. But mostly in our pond. I'm told by a neighbor that a heron (probably Harry) ate their two foot long, prized koi from the koi pond a few feet out their back door. Sad, but herons are supposed to eat fish.

Herons are not supposed to eat poisonous Rough-skinned Newts, of which we have a jillion in our pond. I watched this heron eat three of them one week. Then I put up a trail camera on the pond and saw him catch and eat many more... day and night. He seems to thrive on them. A biologist told me that some ponds may have newts that are less poisonous. Either ours are pretty mild or this heron is immune.

I don't think there's anything a heron would not eat if it could be swallowed. I watched "our" heron stalk a Hooded Merganser. I'm not kidding. I took a whole series of photos. In the last one, the Hoodie had dived and Harry the Heron looked disappointed... or maybe puzzled.

 But worst of all are the trail camera videos. This heron eats Red-legged Frogs! Now Red-legged Frogs are in a bit of trouble, I understand, so I liked to think the ones in our pond were safe. How wrong I was. The video I took of this miserable heron skewering and eating a Red-legged Frog is horrifying. The still capture I took off the video is bad enough.

Take a look at this bird's beak. Imagine if it were big enough to swallow a person. Our Harry has turned from a treasured wild thing into a source of nightmares.

 It's sobering what supposedly innocuous birds do when we're not looking. Last week we watched a female mallard at John Neal Park in Lyons, Oregon, eat a frog. Yes, we saw it happen. I thought mallards ate vegetation! How wrong I was. According to Wikipedia (the source for everything), mallards are omnivorous and have been reported eating frogs. Here she is cleaning her bill after the dirty deed. Her mate stood looking the other way the entire time. Perhaps he didn't approve of her meal selection. I sure didn't.

 
But mallards don't scare me. A much smaller bird, however, does.

Nothing is quite so belligerant as a hummingbird. Rufous Hummers are beautiful. One male guards the hummingbird feeder outside our kitchen window and attacks any other male trying to take a sip. Unfortunately for me, the outdoor water spigot, which I use often to clean shovels, fill chicken water buckets, etc., is right under that window. Yesterday, the guardian hummingbird attacked me. I ignored it, best I could while being dive bombed by what sounded like a gigantic bee. But when I dropped the hose before turning off the spigot, the hose bounced and sprayed the window and the hummingbird feeder. That was the last straw as far as that diminutive bird was concerned. He went to buzzing me inches from my head and screaming in indignation. I retreated. Yes, they're lovely little birds, but I'm so glad they are *little* birds.

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Here is a video of this little fellow threatening an unseen interloper and chasing it off. http://youtu.be/zR06ipwOgPE   Such indignation!

Most birds, no matter their size, seem to realize that humans are at the top of the pecking order. But I'm not sure about herons. And I'm pretty sure hummingbirds don't give a rip.

Ferruginous Hawk revisited

 Johnny said my January photos of the Ferruginous looked like a gull to him. So I tried again today on my way into McMinnville when the hawk was much closer to the road. Yes, the juvenile light phase Ferruginous is in the same field as of today, Feb. 7. It was still far for my little camera but surely Johnny won't think this looks like a gull?

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.