Give Us This Day Our Daily Birding

Jeanette and Buster are shown here at a bench overlooking the Willamette River during our morning bird walk yesterday morning at Willamette Mission State Park.

A daily bird walk has become so much a part of our daily life as to be almost as important as our daily bread. It is what we enjoy the most.  We are convinced there is no better medicine.  By walking several miles each day we get in some exercise, which we all three need.  Sunlight, according to medical authorities is helpful by providing needed vitamin D.  The quest to identify birds is always a mental challenge, which medical authorities claim is important to help fend off memory loss in the aging process.  And then there is the intangible good feeling and comfort we feel being out in the natural world. We love the beauty of trees and shrubs, the curve of the trail, the bubble of the stream, the seasonal change of flowers to fruit, the change of leaves from green to yellows and reds. It makes our hearts sing.  We are grateful for each day we are allowed some time for birding.

Back to Removing English Ivy

I'm back to removing English Ivy.   For the last two years I have volunteered at the Salem Audubon Nature Reserve.  One of my tasks has been working on the removal of Ivy, but now I feel it's time for me to turn my attention and energy to fighting the Ivy at Darrow Bar.  Darrow Bar is a property of Oregon State Parks and an access point of the Willamette Greenway.  Ivy, once planted to enhance garden landscaping has escaped and become a terrible invasive vine that left unchecked will climb trees and literally kill the tree. We use nearby Darrow Bar on a regular basis to walk and bird, so it's a place near and dear to my heart so to speak. It feels good to give back to a place we get so much from. My self assigned task is to "girdle" an affected tree, that is to say, cut all the ivy from a section of the tree, shutting off the life blood that feeds the towering vines. It's a beautiful thing to come back and see the dying vines high up in a huge tree and think I probably have saved that tree from what would be it's inevitable death.

Still Hanging Around

We were surprised to find an Osprey this morning while birding at Willamette Mission State Park.  I believe it to be a juvenile male who looks to be having a bad hair day.  He may be out of sorts because most of his kin have already left for Mexico or wherever. It's been over two weeks since we have seen an Osprey, in fact I posted about it on the 10th of this month.  When we first spotted this bird this morning we could only make out a silhouette, so I did my best to come up with some other bird, but it turned out indeed to be an Osprey who is still hanging around. Click on the photo below to see and enlarged view of the Osprey and the snag he is on.

Summer too seems to be still hanging around with abundant sunshine and warm temperatures, causing us to continue to hang around outdoors as much as we can finding as many birds as we can.
For todays bird list click here.

Seasonal Changes

Jeanette checking bird songs

Yesterday was one of those great fall days when you realize the season is changing, the temperature was a bit cooler and the sun a little less harsh. We selected the Rickreall Creek Trail in Dallas for a morning bird walk prior to watching the soccer games of grandsons Luke & Jake.  The trail is a wonderful place to walk and bird that we have been using and recommending for three years now. The city of Dallas continues to expand and improve the trail, a graceful concrete path that follows alongside Rickreall Creek, appropriate for all seasons. Our biggest birding challenge yesterday was identifying two different warblers.  The photo below is a Yellow-rumped Warbler, and the other bird which I did not get a photo of was a Yellow Warbler.  In checking bar charts on eBird for Polk County when I got home it was interesting to find that these last days of September are the cross-over point for these two warblers.  The Yellow Warbler, which has been around since April, is leaving for the winter.  And the Yellow-rumped Warbler that has been absent all of July and August and most of September is reappearing. To observe both of these warblers on a narrow cross-over point in time struck me as pretty amazing. Not only are there seasonal changes in the temperature, but also in the bird population.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Maud Williamson State Recreation Site

California Quail

You will need to look closely to see the chick being carefully guided by his concerned dad through the leftover stubs of the corn field. You can also see that dad has his eye on us as he  shepards the chick out of harms way. The corn field borders the west side of Maud Williamson State Recreation Site. On the east side, the park is bordered by the busy Salem-Dayton Highway.  This park was a gift to the State of Oregon by the family that once lived in the historic house located on site.  To be perfectly frank, the park gets used the most from motorists stopping to use the restroom, but Jeanette and I have discovered it to be a convenient and productive destination for birding.  It is one of probably close to a dozen parks that I have suggested to eBird as a birding Hot Spot. Two weeks ago when we last stopped here the adjoining cornfield was a tall jungle, impossible to see any birds.  On this trip the corn had been harvested, and the open field was being used by a variety of birds to glean the leftovers. You can see our birding list here.

Dark-eyed Junco

This park was one of four stops for the morning on a sort of "grand finale" of birding to close our summer with good friend John West prior to his returning to Arizona. 

A Hiding Place

On our way back from Central Oregon yesterday we stopped at Lyons City Park for a break and a bird walk.  Jeanette spotted this Green Heron fly by and drop deep into the grass to hide from us as Green Herons are prone to do. This  park centers around a former mill site and log pond that today offers hiding spots for a number of critters.

Perhaps the ugliest Great Blue Heron I have ever photographed---this young bird is using the series of ponds to grow up, changing it's juvenile plumage to the adult.

A male Merlin, has stopped at the park on his very early migration from the north.

Even Black-tailed Deer enjoy hiding out in the park.  This young one was one of a group of four.

Lyons City Park is an amazing birding and wildlife location.  We first discovered it for ourselves in December of 2013. You can read the Trip Journal from that day here.  I was so impressed with the location that I suggested it as a birding Hot Spot for eBird.org.  Now almost three years later, Jeanette and I are still the only ones reporting to eBird our observations, it appears to be well hidden from the birding world.

Birding on the Metolius River

female Western Tanager with Fall Caddisfly

Yesterday we stopped mid-day to walk and bird the Metolius River in the Camp Sherman area.  It was a strange feeling to be on the trails of the Metolius River for the sole purpose of bird watching.  Over the past 45 years I have been there for so many other reasons; camping, fishing, hiking, biking, and backpacking. To see the river through the lens of birding gave me a new appreciation.  The ice cold spring fed waters of the Metolius River provide not only a good habitat for fish, but also nourish a rich riparian zone along its banks which support a wide diversity of birds. We did a loop hike, parking the motorhome in the parking lot of the former Allingham Guard Station and walking up the East Metolius Trail to Camp Sherman and back on the West Metolius Trail.  Our timing was perfect to make our lunch stop for a traditional sandwich at the Camp Sherman Store. 

Townsend's Solitaire

Identification of the Townsend's Solitaire, a member of the Trush Family, took a bit of head scratching as it's a bird we haven't seen in some time. 

American Dipper

This bird of the water world, with it's delightful melody of song, was the first bird that caught our attention yesterday.  

Our camping destination for the night was the Deschutes County Fairgrounds RV Park in Redmond, and today we travel on to Shelvin Park in Bend for the real purpose of our weekend trip, the wedding of niece Bethany Scott to Nathan Keeley.