The New Nesting Box

I have a rule that I only publish at the most, one post a day.  However, this is too good not to share today.  At first light this morning I was out taking down the old swallow nesting boxes and putting up the new improved version.  The new slot design is to keep the hated House Sparrows out.  The slot is only 7/8" by 3", instead of the traditional larger circle. At 8:05 AM we had our first visitors, and it was not the hoped for Swallows, but the demon House Sparrows.

 Hey, a new nesting box!

Looks empty!

Ugh, too tight

"What did you do, to my house?"

The design appeared to work, only time will tell if it keeps the Sparrows out. 

The Swallows are Back!

male Violet-green Swallow

Yesterday when we returned home from volunteering with the Salem Audubon Society at the Salem Yard & Garden Show, we were just setting down to lunch on our patio,  when I noticed that there were a pair of Violet-green Swallows in our neighbors tree.  These are the first swallows of the year for our back yard.  A few minutes later there were more swallows and a great distubance centered around our swallow nesting box.  I then realized we also had Tree Swallows.  Typically the Tree Swallows arrive weeks before the Violet-green Swallows. But the real irony was that I had just purchased new nesting boxes at the Yard & Garden Show.  I had hoped to get the new nesting boxes up before the swallows arrived, but just missed. I'll get them up this morning and the swallows can sort out which uses what.  Last year the Tree Swallows took the box in the back yard and the Violet Green had to settle for the one in the front yard. The new nesting boxes are a special design to prevent House Sparrows from entering.  The nasty House Sparrows last year killed the baby birds or drove off the parents at all three of the nesting sites in our back and front yards. Hopefull the new slot design will work against the House Sparrows. We are delighted to have the swallows back from their wintering grounds, their graceful flight and friendly chatter bring such joy to our back yard. 

male Tree Swallow

Old Memories - New Discoveries

We got out and enjoyed the sun yesterday.  One of the places we went was Buell Park, located on Mill Creek in western Polk County.  It took me back in time because many years ago when I was just getting started fly fishing I took my family and went fishing here.  I think my daughter Lisa would have been two years old and my son Michael would have been four.  The drive-way parking and restrooms looked about the same, but I couldn't really recognize Mill Creek, it was high of course with the recent rain, but it seems that over the years the stream has made new cuts in the bank and taken on a different character altogether. Yesterday as Jeanette and Buster and I roamed the park looking for birds we heard some faint calls across the river, which after some concentration we decided were Wild Turkeys.  We could hear them but not see them.  Jeanette got out her iPhone and used an App that has recorded bird sounds.  Turkeys are curious birds and shortly these huge birds came flying overhead from accross the river and landed in some tall fir trees.  It completely made our day.  We needed Wild Turkeys for our county list, and here we were rewarded with such a great discovery.

Rare Eurasian Teal

Eurasian Teal

The Eurasian Teal also know as a Common Teal is a subspecies of the Green-winged Teal. It is considered to be a very rare bird for our West Coast. A few people have reported seeing one at the Fairview Wetlands here in Salem, and  Jeanette and I have made several failed attempts to try find it. Yesterday we fianlly got lucky.  The reason I say "lucky" is there are only slight differences in this Teal compared to the more numerous Green-winged Teal. There are approxamately 60 Green-winged Teals swimming around in and out of view on the ponds at Fairview Wetlands, which means you have to check out a lot of Green-winged Teals to find the single Eurasian Teal. You can see in the above photo the Eurasian Teal lacks a vertical white bar at the shoulder and has a horizonal white stripe on the wing  as compared to the Green-winged Teal in the lower photo.

 Green-winged Teal

First Nest of the Season

Yesterday we saw our first nesting birds of the season.  Jeanette spotted the nest as we were driving on Hawthorne Street. From the car it was hard to tell what kind of bird it was, perhaps a hawk of some kind.  I even entertained the idea of a Great Horned Owl.  After parking in the closest parking lot, which was Geer Community Park, we got out the binoculars, relocated the site, and relized it was a Great Blue Heron on the nest. I took a couple of photos that were not very good, but after looking at them at home on the computer closely I realized we had a pair of herons.  I went back this morning to get a better photo which is the one above.  Only one bird was there, perhaps a proud male, maybe the female was off fetching some breakfast.  This always brings up the question, "when will we see babies?" According to my research, incubation takes 28 days.  But there is a number before that we need, the time between conception and the laying of the eggs, which is called gestation.  This is were I get driven crazy.  Gestation is not mentioned in any of the bird books I have, and believe me I have a few.  But wouldn't you know it, that information is only a few key clicks away now-days on the Internet.  What I found is that the gestation period vaires depending on the size of the bird, big birds more days, little birds less days.  But an over all average is 30 days.  Based on the post coidal preening that was going on yesterday, I would guess we should be seeing heron chicks around the middle of May. You can bet we will be checking back.

Test Flight of the Free Spirit

We recently sold our 2010 Winnebago View that we have used for the past four and a half years, and purchased a 2013 Liesure Travel Vans Free Spirit. Our desire is to have a smaller, simpler, more manuvable RV to facilitate our free spirit for short trips and birding adventures. 

Down sizing into a smaller RV required quite a bit of inginuity. After a week of moving into the van and checking all systems, on Thursday we took it on a test flight. Jeanette and Buster are shown here boarding the Free Spirit for take off.

The monthly challenge by eBird for this month is to turn in 15 observation lists from new locations. This means searching out locations we have never birded before.  This became our routing guide for our test flight.  Our first stop was Gentle Woods Park in Monmouth, where we enjoyed some wonderful sunshine and a short list of birds.

Our second stop was Winegar Park, also in Monmouth. Again more sunshine and a few birds. We had expected our third stop to be the Main Street Park, but it was totally torn apart with new construction, so we opted to use a coupon for lunch at Subway.  It was easy to park the van on the street, and we had our first meal curbside enjoying the sites of Monmouth with no one aware of what we were doing behind the tinted glass, eating lunch.

Our third stop was at Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge at the Eagle Marsh Overlook.  Incidentally this site is where the Salem Audubon Society is going to build a new visitor and education center. Our forth stop was for an appointment Jeanette had at Keizer Skyline.  While she met with a doctor, I stretched out on the couch and worked on my computer. We were jazzed about our first use of the Free Spirit.  It is so much fun to explore with all the comforts of home.

The Best of Spring

Western Meadowlark

This morning I seemed to have an abundance of energy that needed to be burned off, so I selected a bird hike on the Rich Guadagno Trail at Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge.  It's a beautiful trail that climbs and circles a butte through wonderful oak forest. An abundance of birds were making their presence known, most notabily the Western Meadowlark with it's melodious song. It was one of those glorious sunny spring mornings when one can't help feeling grateful to be alive.  Because I have lived in the Willamette Valley most of my life, I remembered that Feburary always has a week of unbelievable spring weather. We are right in the middle of that great weather right now.  Bright sunshine and warm temperatures every day, the flowers are starting to bloom, the birds are singing, it is the best of spring!