Birding Turner Lake

 Hidden away next to Kings Valley Highway and just south of Highway 22, is a private reservoir named Turner Lake.  Although shown on the eBird map as a Hotspot, access is controlled by the Oregon Fishing Club. The Village Birders from Dallas Retirement Village were fortunate enough to have the services of Tim Johnson of Santiam Flycasters and also Salem Audubon, provide access and guide us on a bird walk around the lake. Fog hampered our view, but with the help of our Merlin phone apps we were able to identify 27 different species.  Eventually the sun won out over the fog, and we actually were able to see some of our birds. A big thanks to Tim, and also to Lane our bus driver. Here is the link to our bird list.

 

Thursday's Bird Watch !

This week's bird photo comes from Amity City Park.  Jeanette and I explored this park last week for our first time and were rewarded with this Acorn Woodpecker storing an oak tree acorn into a hole in a tall Douglas Fir tree.  Notice all the other nuts in other holes. This is known as a "granary".  Acorn Woodpeckers live in a colony and work collectively at storing acorns in a granary tree.  Supposedly they always leave one member to guard their collection.
 

Thursday's Bird Watch

The California Scrub-Jay as photographed on September 13th continues to be the most active bird species to be seen here in Dallas Retirement Village.  They are busy all day long bringing in oak tree acorns to bury for winter.  I get asked many times about these "blue jays".  Strictly speaking we do not have Blue Jays in Oregon.  Blue Jays occur East of the Rockies.  To complicate matters, our jays have been called various names as ornithologist continue to reclassify this bird.  If you look at a bird guide from 1990, our jays will be referred to as Scrub Jays.  If you look at a bird guide from 2000, they will be referred to as Western Scrub-Jays.  But a bird guide from this decade will refer to them as California Scrub-Jays.
 

Thursday's Bird Watch!

My thanks go out to Dallas Retirement Village resident Pete McDowell for telling us that our Red-breasted Sapsucker has returned to Tilgner Avenue.  I say "our", because a number of DRV residents have been observing this bird, or another one of the same species, for several years at the same tree.  We last saw a Red-breasted Sapsucker at this tree on April 1st of this year.  The story of this species is that they go somewhere else to breed and to raise their young during the spring and summer.  This tree is their winter hang out from September until April.  One look at the tree with its many sap wells will explain why they like to hang out here.
 

Thursday's Bird Watch

This is the time of year when birds are busy harvesting and hiding food for later this winter.  In this case it's a California Scrub-Jay photographed here in Dallas Retirement Village up at The Pavilion last Friday Aug 30th.  I watched while the jay repeatedly flew up to a perch with an oak in its bill and then down to its cache under some shrubs.  Incidentally, the California Scrub-Jay was first officially recorded in Oregon in 1880 as the Long-tailed Jay.  A quick glance at the tail in the photo validates the name.

 

Wild Turkeys

At 7:30 this mourning just as we were about to leave to check out several good birding locations out of town, Jeanette noticed this flock of a dozen Wild Turkeys just outside the building we live in. This is a combined family with two mama birds and their 10 offspring.  I posted about them back on July 17th. The poults have grown so fast that they are almost the same size as the moms. Officially named "Wild Turkeys" they seem quite domestic as they roam quite freely through the Dallas Retirement Village, much to the enjoyment of all the residents. I suppose there could be a lesson here, --- that it's not necessary to put a lot of effort in to traveling when we can have an interesting birding experience right outside our door.