Birding Staats Lake

The title of this post should actually be “Fighting the Grey of Winter”, because this is what today's walk was really about.  It’s hard to be motivated when you wake up to another wet cold day of winter. This is where Buster comes in handy in getting us out the door.  After all the morning chores have been done, like coffee, reading the paper, checking e-mail, Facebook, favorite blogs, and having breakfast, Buster begins to whine for a walk.  He doesn’t realize its wet and cold out side and he won't like it.  He only knows the routine and the next most important thing to him is for us to take him on an adventure. He will not let up with the whining and we will have no peace until the walk gets taken care off.  So this morning we piled in the car to drive to some place with concrete sidewalks for a walk that would give us a change of scenery from our own neighborhood.  We considered several possibilities as we drove out of Salemtowne.  We ended up choosing Staats Lake in Keizer because it looked less cloudy to the north.  I had never been to Staats Lake before but it has been on my list for a while as one of those places I wanted to go to check out the birds.  It turned out to be a great choice with a paved sidewalk that circles the lake shoreline, and we got a good list of birds.  Halfway around the lake we also got a good shower, our only option was to just to keep walking.  But my thanks goes to Buster for getting me out the door, I hate moping around the house all day in the grey of winter.

The Promise of Spring

For the last two mornings while taking a morning bird walk I have been surprised with how both mornings have reminded me a little bit of spring.  This is despite the fact that the temps are in the mid forties. I think it’s the sound of the birds starting to sing a little more that have queued up this feeling.  Robins are in abundance, I conservatively counted 35 this morning, but there was another song I picked up at several locations that I failed to find and identify. As I neared the front driveway to Salem Towne on my circular route I heard it again clear and distinct.  Crossing the street to Hans and Margaret’s font yard I was surprised to find this Song Sparrow.  It was oblivious to my presence and continued to sing on. Who would guess that the all so common Song Sparrow could bring me such joy? I am reminded of the poem of Emily Dickinson—   

            Hope is the thing with feathers -

            That perches in the soul -

            And sings the tune without the words - 

            And never stops at all -

He's Back!!

The juvenile Cooper’s Hawk reported on in the last post is back making passes through our back yard. Jeanette and I continue to be on the sick list, so not much in the way of exciting adventures to report. Most of our entertainment seems to come from observations in the back yard.  Besides this juvenile Cooper’s Hawk, we have had visits from a mature Cooper’s and also a mature Sharp Shinned, so we are sure that we have had at least three different hawks patrolling our back yard.  I daily put out birdseed to feed the little birds, they eat it, and then the hawks make an attempt to eat them. And so goes the circle of life.

Back Yard Entertainment

For the last several days I have been under the weather with a bad cold which has kind of limited my birding to staring out the windows to our back yard. At times even that limited process can be quite entertaining.  Yesterday was a good example.  We have a variety of feeders in our back yard and attract a good number of little songbirds, warblers, sparrows, and finches, probably close to a dozen different species.  And these little birds are what attracts the bird eating hawks.  Yesterday morning an adult Sharp-shinnedHawk swooped in and all the little guys scattered.  In the afternoon this immature Copper’s Hawk stopped by and again all was quiet at the feeders. Any time I look out into our backyard and it is devoid of little birds at the feeders it’s a safe bet one of these hawks has just made a pass.  I know they are some times successful as we found a pile of feathers the other day.

A Winter Warbler

I took this photo of a Yellow-rumped Warbler at our suet feeder this morning.  You can still see some suet on the top at the base of its bill.  It got me to thinking about how it’s kind of strange that I only remember seeing them in our back yard during the winter.  I normally think of warblers as tropical birds that only migrate here during the spring to mate and raise their young and then migrate south in the fall. I decided to do some research. Checking eBird observation charts for Polk County I found that Yellow-rumped Warblers have not been reported in Polk County from the middle of June through the middle of August.  Checking my own personal records for my back yard I found an even longer absence, with their presence only noted from November through March.  Of the nine warblers commonly seen here in the mid Willamette Valley, only two, the Townsends and Yellow-rumped are seen during the winter. In other words, the majority of warbles, seven out of nine, are only summer residents migrating south in the winter. I am now going to have a new appreciation for the Yellow-rumped Warbler and be thinking of it as unique in its role as a winter warbler.