Western Bluebird Eggs!

Jeanette asked me this afternoon if I had seen the bluebirds today.  They seem to come and go, and we are not really sure if anything is going on with the nest or not. "No", I replied, "I don't think I have". I went to my den window to double check myself, and after looking around the front yard and staring at the blue bird nesting box for awhile I thought I might see a head inside of the entrance.  I got my binoculars and watched as the female squeezed out the opening and flew off to a street lamp post. As I continued to watch she flew back to our front porch gutter, and then flew off to the west in the direction of a green-way. I decided this was the time to find out if anything was going on with the nesting box. I got Jeanette, gave her my cell phone, and we made a quick inspection of the box.  To our complete surprise and astonishment we discovered these six eggs!  Western Bluebirds lay eggs at the pace of one a day, so this has been going on for at least six days.  Incubation takes two weeks, so we will try to wait patiently and keep our fingers crossed that they hatch successfully. By the way, we did a complete inventory of the rest of our nesting boxes, two that have had swallow activity were completely bare, the third had a House Sparrow start up nest, which got emptied.

More On Owl Chicks

Our good friend John West went to Cattail Cove State Park today to get this photo of the Great Horned Owl chicks.  Notice, on the far left is also an adult, which I would assume is the mom.  My guess is the chicks hatched some time around the first week in March, and will probably not be able to leave the nest until around the middle of May.  Even though they can fly then, they will still be dependent of being fed by the parents for a couple of more months. Owls hatch asynchronous, meaning not at the same time, and this is evident if you look at this post and the former post, you can see the three chicks are of different sizes.

Arizona Owl Chicks

I now have photographic evidence of the Great Horned Owl chicks at Cattail Cove State Park!  Regular readers of this blog will remember that Jeanette and I spent January and February volunteering at Cattail Cove State Park in Arizona.  While there, Jeanette was very fortunate to find the small cave where the female Great Horned Owl was starting to nest. This was on February 3rd.  Because the incubation period for Great Horned Owl is approximately 35 days, we were not able to see the chicks before we left at the end of February.  Yesterday we received e-mail from Ron and Alison Husak with an attachment of the above photo. Look close and you can see there are three chicks!  Alison was on some of my bird walks, and so knew the location of the nest, and took the above photo yesterday.  Below is the first photo of the mom on the nest, taken on February 3rd, for comparison.

  

Osprey Obsession

2018 begins my fifth year of paying attention to nesting Osprey in the West Salem Area.  It started with volunteering at the Salem Audubon Nature Reserve on Eola Drive in 2014.  I was captivated with the Osprey that came to the platform that had been installed by Salem Electric.  The next year, returning Osprey to the nest site on Murlark Ave was brought to my attention by friend John West. Then I began keeping track of other sites in West Salem, the site at Patterson Street & 9th, and the site at the ball fields at Wallace Marine Park.  Keeping track of the observations and adding photos is made easy with e-Bird, and now I go to a whole new level of craziness, adding names.  Another birder/photographer on Facebook has come up with the novel idea of assigning names to the Osprey she photographs to help her keep track.  She gives them a name starting with the first letter of the location of the nest site.  So here goes for my collection of nesting Osprey in West Salem this year.

Each year it seems the first nest site to be occupied is the platform on Murlark Ave.  This female was first observed at the site on March 18th this year. A male has now joined her.  I'm thinking Muriel and Merl.

The Patterson & 9th Streets location provided a sighting on March 22nd.  Salem Electric has now installed a live cam which can be viewed via You Tube.  However if the bird is on the perch as in this photo it is out of range from the camera.  This female was photographed on 4/1/18. Patricia & Patrick seem right.

The ball field at Wallace Marine Park has long had an Osprey Nest.  This occupying pair was noted and photographed on March 30.  Wally sits on top of the pole while Wendy sits on the nest.

The site on Eola Drive NW at the Salem Audubon Nature Reserve was the last of the four central West Salem sites to be claimed this year.  I believe this to be the returning male from last year.  I think Ernie fits him.

I don't know that handing out names helps any in keeping track, but it does make them a lot more personable than just referring to them as "the male" or "the female". Names can always be changed, so if you have any better suggestions, please leave a comment.