A Bird Thanksgiving

With all the advertising and talk swirling around the Thanksgiving Season about food, I got to thinking about what we had observed with the birds during our bird/dog walk at Staats Lake in Keizer yesterday morning. Below are a few photos of birds with their dining choices.

Suet was selected by this Townsend's Warbler

Fresh fish was the choice of this Glaucous-winged Gull

A Sharp-shinned Hawk pauses while enjoying her duck

Comfort and Consternation

One of the things we love about owning a small RV is the ability to park in our drive-way and then on the spur of the moment, to be able to take it and all the comforts it provides on a short excursion to a local park to walk and bird.  Yesterday was a good example, we took our new-to-us Serenity to Willamette Mission State Park to do some birding. Jeanette took this photo in one of the parking lots where we parked. We got in about 30 minutes of walking and birding before the rain moved in and we took shelter back in the RV.  The timing was good so we had lunch, relaxed, took a nap, and then later in the afternoon when the sun came out we resumed our birding.  That's the positive spin on the day.  On the other side of the coin is the fact that when we tried to heat water in the micro-wave we discovered that we had no power from the generator. That led to searching for tripped breakers or blown fuses. Searches on the Internet gave up some ideas, but still no power from the generator.  For the past two weeks I have be trying to resolve a tail light problem that I discovered on an over night trip, so I am more than dismayed that after four weeks we are still dealing with system problems. Stay tuned as we continue practice camping with the hope that it will lead to perfect camping.

Welcome to Subirdia

Song Sparrow

I am currently reading an interesting book entitled "Welcome to Subirdia" by John M. Murzluff.  Basically the idea that he explains is that when humans clear the land and develop the suburbs, we still can have good bird populations, in fact in most cases better than some wilderness areas, and better than our inner cities. Although some species, which he calls Avoiders, flee the developing suburbs for their preferred habitats.  Other species, which he calls Exploiters, take advantage of the situation and replace those that have fled, in fact many times over.  Examples of Exploiters are Canada Goose, European Starling, House Sparrow, Mallard, Rock Pigeon, American Crow, and House Finch.  The third group, which is in fact the largest, are the Adapters.  They adapt from natural streams, lakes, and ponds to artificial water impoundments. They adapt from natural seed sources to seed feeders, from nesting cavities in trees to man-made bird houses. The net result can be a vibrant diverse bird population that has either adapted or moved in to exploit the new habitat of green spaces, feeders, houses, and a huge variety of shrubs and trees.

I thought about all of this while taking our dog Buster on a dog/bird walk this morning in  our suburb development of Salemtown.  In a little over an hour I counted 60 individual birds from 18 different species.  eBird list here. I feel very fortunate that I can just walk out my door and enjoy the benefits of living in subirdia.

White-throated Sparrow - the Joy of Winter Birds

I was having a quiet morning, sitting on the couch reading, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bird on the suet feeder by the window.  The light was bad with the weak morning sun behind the bird, but it suggested to me it might be a White-throated Sparrow.  This is a winter bird for the Willamette Valley, and a couple of birders have reported seeing them recently, but I had not yet seen one this season.  I went and got my binoculars and my camera and followed the bird to the sunflower feeder to get this photo. To understand my excitement, I have only seen this species in our yard the first winter we moved here in 2013. I only know this, not from my great memory, but because of the great records e-Bird keeps. White-throated Sparrows can easily be overlooked for the much more common White-crowned Sparrow, which are available to be seen some place in Oregon year around, but the white throat and yellow spot at the base of the bill are telling signs. They spend their breeding season in Canada and are only seen in this area October thru April.  Enjoying our winter visitors from the comfort of my living room, helps enduring the cold and damp Oregon winter.

A Cooper's Hawk - Not A Merlin

During a brief dry spot in late afternoon yesterday we took Buster for a short walk in the neighborhood. When returning to our house, Jeanette noticed this bird in the top of a tree half a block away.  She said, "Wait, is that our Merlin or a Crow?"  I said, "Most probably a crow".  Viewed only with the naked eye it was hard to tell at that distance.  Jeanette got binoculars, and I got my camera. Disappointingly we realized it was a Cooper's Hawk.  Disappointed in a Cooper's Hawk?  You see we have been hopefully checking tree tops daily this fall for our Merlin. For the past three winters we have enjoyed a Merlin showing up in our neighborhood, probably returning from its summer breeding grounds in the far north.  We have watched it from our kitchen window keeping an eye on our backyard feeder. Merlins are members of the fast flying falcon family and are capable, as we have witnessed, of snatching a song bird in mid air. Watching the Merlin each winter since moving here in 2013, we have become familiar enough with it to know the exact four trees where it can be seen.  At this point it feels like it is past due, and we fear that for the first time our Merlin has not made it back. (Looking back at my records, we have seen our bird begining in the middle of October thru March.)

Birding at Cheadle Lake

October is looking to be a record setting month for rain, which is driving our desire to head for California in our-new-to-us Serenity motorhome. A forecast for dry contitions for Friday prompted us to make a short overnight stay at Waterloo County Park near Lebanon to get a chance to test out all operating systems on the RV before making a long trip. We left in driving rain on Thursday afternoon with our fingers crossed that the forecast would be correct. It stopped raining just before we arrived at the park.We did discover a number of little things to add or fix, and the biggest supprise to me was that we had neither brake nor tail lights on the right rear. Maybe more on that later.

The second part of our plan was to spend the next day birding at Cheadle Lake in Lebanon.  When I was growing up in Lebanon, Cheadle Lake was the log pond for Cascade Plywood Corporation.  In those days Lebanon was dominated by too large mills, Crown Zellerbach Paper Mill on the north end of town, and Cascade Plywood Corportation on the south end.  My grandfather, Arthur McClain worked for a brief period on the Casacade mill pond, and interesting enough in later years Jeanette's dad, Jim Dye also worked on the pond. Today the old logging pond has be transformed into a great recreation site for fishing, walking, and birding, complete with paved paths, benches, and boat launch. The weather forecast was right on and we had a great morning of sunshine for birding.

Bald Eagle

male Anna's Hummingbird

old photo of Cascade Plywood Corporation 

A Change to Serenity

We have traded RVs, our Free Spirit for a Serenity. Most people will possibly not notice, it is the same color and the same brand, Leisure Travel Van, but it is a more spacious model, 11" wider, 21" longer, and 5" taller.  Most importantly it is an entirely different floor plan, giving us more living area, a better bed, and a real shower. Also a big plus are larger tanks for fresh, black and grey water, allowing us longer periods between hook-ups.

We took advantage of some fair weather on Saturday afternoon to take a trial drive with the Serenity to Huddleston Pond in Willamina and do some birding. The fall colors were glorious and we got some good birds, see the list here. We like the way it drives and the spaciousness of the floor plan. But we did find that a squeaking door is a major annoyance. The Serenity Prayer comes to mind.

"God give us the the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference".

So far the Serenity is allowing us to accept the needs of aging a little more gracefully. We did prove to have the courage to change vans, and we looking for wisdom on fixing the door.