Thursday's Bird Watch!

 In taking a short bird walk here at Dallas Retirement Village on Sunday June 29th, Jeanett and I noticed some American Crows making a lot of noise.  I have learned over the years that when crows are making a fuss about something it's a good idea to take a closer look at what is going on. That is when we found this Cooper's Hawk seeking sanctuary in a small tree outside the Village Apartments. The American Crows had good reason to be concerned with the Cooper's Hawk because Cooper's Hawks main diet is other birds! The next time you hear some crows making a big commotion, take a closer look, you might be in for a surprise. 

Mt. Fir Park

Jeanette on the path along the South Fork of Ash Creek

On the 4th of July, Jeanette and I ventured out to Mt. Fir Park in Independence for a bird walk. For the previous couple of days, I had been taking short walks without the aid of my walker. Mt Fir Park provided the opportunity to go birding on a path along the creek that had not been practicable to use with my walker. It was great to have a fresh sense of freedom as we worked our way along the path beside the South Fork of Ash Creek.

It seemed to be our lucky day for birds. There were an unusually high number of birds along the creek, and then we realized that they were newly fledged Barn Swallows. The same thing for Violet-green Swallows, Black-capped Chickadees, and Bushtits.  All four had just recently fledged, and the young birds were trying to figure out how to navigate the brushy habitat of the creek. Here is our eBird checklist.

Barn Swallow fledgling 

 

Balcony Birding (2)

From my perch on the balcony yesterday, I photographed this White-crowned Sparrow, presumably a male standing guard in the Central Courtyard, while out of sight in the shrubbery, two females are dragging in grass to build nests. This drama actually started a couple of days ago when Jeanette reported seeing the nest building going on. She assumed one female was visiting two different shrubs.  After a little research, I found that female, White-crowned Sparrows are Polygynous, so I now think our one male has two females building two separate nests. And then, just as I thought I had a nice little story all in one bundle, I took the photo below with a female feeding her young. When I posted the photo with my Checklist to eBird.org, it immediately came back with a notice that the juvenile was not a White-crowned Sparrow, but a Brown-headed Cowbird. What the heck!!

Brown-headed Cowbirds are well known for laying their eggs in other bird's nests, and both Jeanette and I remember seeing a Brown-headed Cowbird in the Central Courtyard this Spring. I looked back in our Checklists, and sure enough I had photographed a Brown-headed Cowbird on the 23rd of May, trying to hide from us in a dogwood tree.  Infact, I think it was this very tree where this Juvenile was seeing being fed. There is no need to travel to far off destinations for birding adventures, there is plenty of drama unfolding right here under my nose in the Central Courtyard of the Dallas Retirement Village.
  

 

Thursday's Bird Watch!

 

This Violet-green Swallow male was photographed on June 10th while he was perched on the rooftop of The Lodge here at Dallas Retirement Village. I love the striking contrast of the bright white underbody and the dark back, wings and head.  We have had Violet-green Swallows here for the past three months, busily swooping around in the air catching insects.  They are common migrants from the tropics that we can depend on seeing every year.  However, this year they have not used either of the special nesting boxes I have for them.  The mystery is, where are they nesting? Mabe hidden in crevices under the eaves? Or, perhaps in neighboring nesting boxes?

UPDATE: No sooner was this sent out to publish in the Dallas Retirement Village newsletter, my wife Jeanette reported seeing Violet-green Swallows feeding young in the bird house on the west end of the garages. photo below ---

 
 

Balcony Birding (1)

This is the view from our balcony, located on the 2nd floor of The Lodge at the Dallas Retirement Village. Since returning home from back surgery at Oregon Health & Science Hospital in Portland, this has become my birding location. It worked out great yesterday morning to sit in my walker and make an eBird Checklist and take some photos. 

A couple of Anna's Hummingbirds seemed to either be defending a territory or engaged in courtship. If courtship it could mean the start of a third round of nesting!

A male, White-crowned Sparrow was busy singing, which I assumed meant he was trying to attract a female. Later I saw two birds coming and going from deep in a shrub. 

Violet-green Swallows were constantly swooping through the air for insects and then feeding them to babies in nests in some dryer vents. 

Look at the Checklist here. 

This completes the report from my perch on the balcony. 

Thursday's Bird Watch

This is an American Kestrel, the smallest member of the fast-flying Falcon Family. Lucky for us, it is by far the most common bird to be seen perched on the power lines along any of our roads in Polk County.  This photo was taken along Smithfield Rd.  Notice her recent catch of a rodent tangling from her right talon.
 

Toledo for The Day

Yesterday, determined to get out of the heat in Dallas for the day, we set our sights on Toledo. Our planned first stop to bird was on the Depot Slough Path at the waterfront in Toledo but arriving there was a good amount of fog and no amount of bird activity. So, our next choice was Paddle Park, located on down Yaquina Bay Rd.  The weather was better, and we were greeted with bird songs galore. We set up our chairs and started counting birds. You can see our eBird Checklist with photos here.

After enjoying lunch and the birds we decided to explore the birding opportunities along the Siletz River. Arriving at the town of Siletz we found their riverfront park, Hee Hee Illahe, a little too busy for our tastes so we traveled on to the next river park, Ojalla Park. 

This park is primarily used for river access, but we were here to check for birds.  In past visits we didn't happen to notice any birds, and worst there was no cell service. On this day we had lots of birds and two bars of cell service!  Again, we made an eBird Checklist. This park will now be a definite return location.

For those who have an interest in more minute information, I presume that "Ojalla" is a different spelling of "Olalla" which is the name of a nearby reservoir, a creek and a slough. According to my research, "Olalla" comes from the word "Olallie" a Chinook jargon word for berries.