Thursday's Bird Watch

Welcome back Red-breasted Sapsuckers! This Sapsucker, plus two others were seen here in the Dallas Retirement Village in front of the Health Care Center last week on Sunday afternoon October 15th.  We were excited because they have not been seen here at DRV in a year and a half since April of 2022.  Sapsuckers belong to the Woodpecker Family and are unique in that they drill a series of holes through the bark of trees to be able to harvest the sap.  They return to these "sap wells" again and again to drink the sap.  The Sapsuckers' recurrence that day remains a mystery.  We have not seen them again in the following days. We checked each of the six trees they visited and could not find any sap holes.  Perhaps the three birds we only passing through that day.  We can only hope they will make a return visit; they are such striking birds.    
 

Thursday's Bird Watch

 Adjacent to the Dallas City Park is the Hunter Arboretum Botanic Garden. Because of its abundance of native plants, shrubs and trees, it is actually a more productive area to find birds than the busy Dallas City Park.  The Arboretum is where I found and photographed this Acorn Woodpecker recently. Notice that it has an oak acorn in its bill.  Fall is all about harvest time, for the birds as well as humans. The birds, particularly the woodpeckers and jays, are busy hiding away nuts to eat later this winter. 

Thursday's Bird Watch

Early in the morning this past Saturday, I found a Great Blue Heron wading carefully along the quiet banks of Rickreall Creek in the Dallas City Park.  I imagine it was looking for prey, possibly for a fish or a crawdad.  Dallas City Park is only a block away from Dallas Retirement Village, and yet at times, because of the abundance of wildlife, birds, squirrels, and deer, it seems like another world.  We are so fortunate to have this amazing resource so close by.  I highly recommend it for a place to walk, or simply sit on a bench and enjoy. 
 

Thursday's Bird Watch

This female Anna's Hummingbird has her bill deep into a Salvia blossom to get some nectar.  This was photographed last Thursday at Dallas Retirement Village in the flower beds of the Red Bistro patio maintained by resident Davis Fletcher.

Given a choice, hummingbirds seem to prefer flower nectar over sugar water at our juice feeders, and nectar is probably better for them.

Originally, Anna's Hummingbirds were found no further north than San Francisco, but in the last several decades they have moved north and now are year around residents here in Oregon, and much further north.  Which means that in winter when the flowers are gone, they do depend on juice feeders, so it's important for us to provide the feeders then. 
 

Huddleston Pond

 This week's destination for the Village Birders of Dallas Retirement Village is Huddleston Pond in Willamina. A favorite of Jeanette's and mine, we have been birding here for the past ten years. Today, October 3rd, marked our 81st trip.  It's a former log pond of Hampton Lumper Company, who donated the area to the City of Willamina for a park. Our group today enjoyed bright sunshine and a few early arriving waterfowl. The most unusual bird we found was a Red-necked Grebe as shown below.  Red-necked Grebes are most commonly seen along our coastline, and it took some time for me to come up with the identification particularly because it was in the non-breeding plumage. Here is the link to our eBird Observation List.

  

Thursday's Bird Watch

The easiest birds to spot for the Village Birders of the Dallas Retirement Village on last week's Bus Birding Trips to the Salem Riverfront Park were the Great Blue Herons. Their large size and patience to stand perfectly still for long periods of time make them easy targets for observation and photographing.  They are common year-around residents here in the Willamette Valley and can be spotted in the shallow water of our rivers and streams seeking out fish and frogs, and also in the open fields waiting for voles and field mice.  
 

Morgan Lake

Friends and fellow Dallas Retirement Village residents, Ron and Dot David, accompanied Jeanette and I on this early morning bird walk to Morgan Lake at Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge. September 30th is the end of the open season for this access trail from Smithfield Road, with winter closure until April 1st, so its import to visit this week if you want a chance to see the incoming waterfowl. 
 

American Pipits, a winter migrant, were digging deep into the muck of the recently drained reservoir of Morgan Lake for mollusks and crustaceans. I believe it's a normal practice to drain the lake be able to flood the lower elevation ponds in the refuge.

  

American Crows were busy taking advantage of the exposed lakebed to capture food, in this case tiny frogs.

Ron reviews the Merlin app on his smart phone for bird sound identifications, while Jeanette enters the identifications into the eBird Checklist.