Places We Love to Bird - Rickreall Creek Trail

As I have said many times, place is almost more important than birds in our choice of location for birding. In other words, even though a water treatment plant may have lots of birds to see, we will always choose a more natural setting. Today was a great reminder of that wisdom. We selected the Rickreall Creek Trail for our early morning bird walk, and in the midst of listening, looking, and identifying birds we were rewarded with this Racoon pawing through the rocks for perhaps crawdads or mussels. In addition to this Racoon, we got to see six Black-tailed Deer, from adults to spotted fawns.

The Rickreall Creek Trail System runs through our small community of Dallas, Oregon. When completely developed, eight different sections will connect to form a continuous stream-side trail. It makes a perfect birding location for us as we rotate through the various sections to meet our whim of the moment.  In all, we have identified 110 different species of birds in 165 trips and provided 71 photos to eBird.     
 

As far as birds from today, this Cooper's Hawk was probably the most significant observation.  It was hanging on for dear life as several American Crows were doing their best to harass it. Here is the link for this morning's walk.

Thursday's Bird Watch

Dallas Retirement Village resident Mary Sites is the guest contributor of this Thursday's Bird Watch! post, suppling both photo and text.

Violet-green Swallow babies have hatched in a 25 year old birdhouse on my third floor balcony. The birdhouse was given to me by Jim and Jeanette Scott when I lived in Arizona.  While riding bikes they came across a man building decorative birdhouses and chose this one because of its Southwest architecture.  No birds built a nest until 2019 in California. An Oak Titmouse pair built nests unsuccessfully for 3 years.  I moved to DRV in 2022 and set the birdhouse on my balcony. I never gave up hope.  Voila! this past week the Violet-green Swallow pair have been busy feeding their hatchlings. The Violet-green Swallow can lay between 4-6 eggs and have 2 broods. I have enjoyed the peeping and cheeping the last few days since they hatched, and we are so excited to see them fledge soon.