Laurel Feigenbaum and her husband were in town from the Bay Area and were up for some morning birding.  So we ignored the cold temps and headed out to North Mountain Park in Ashland.  Common Yellowthroats and even Wilson’s Warblers gave us some good looks.  Then there was this domestic couple coming and going from their house above the water:

That’s the female Tree Swallow on top of the box, her back not the glossy black of her mate, more of a dark, matte brown.  Their nest box is on a wooden post about three feet above the surface of a shallow pond.

 

 

 

 

Further along the trail we found this mystery sparrow.  Think it might be a White-crowned?  They do nest in the Rogue Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, here’s a side view of that same sparrow.  It was a Golden-crowned.  Late migrant?  Sticking around until the snow melts before he moves upslope to nest?

There was a Lincoln’s Sparrow flitting around the same berry bushes cum brush pile, but he would not pose for a picture.  Much shyer.

 

 

 

 

There were flashing yellow forms all through the trees and along the reeds just above the surface of the little ponds.  Warblers including Orange-crowned.  Tiny goldfinches.  Western Kingbirds with a belly the color of banaaSeveral Western Tanagers, even one who stood still for some long views of the yellow chest, Valencia orange face.  A couple BH Grosbeaks sped over the trees.  But most frustrating were the singing, chattering orioles.  A quick glimpse of black, an outline of a long thin tail,  a shadowy figure behind the leaves forty feet over our heads.  More chattering, then a speeding slender shape moving across the open.  As we were less than fifty feet from the car, ready to leave, this guy flew up to a branch.  Stopped in the open, waiting for a bit of the sporadic sunshine.  He has just bathed in a pond and so those uneven back feathers are not really the fault of my lousy photography but are really wet feathers.  A little preening fby the male Bullock’s Oriole.  Some well-deserved “Look at that bird,” from all three of us.  A female Bullock’s showed up and we got to compare her gray undercarriage with the much bolder colors of the male.

I blogged earlier about the Evening Grobeak pair we saw at North Mountain.  That was #199 on my Oregon life list.  Surprising also were a pair of Ring-necked Ducks.  Two months ago I would have yawned, but this is pretty late in the spring…this pair may simply be among the small number who nest in eastern Oregon so they haven’t far to fly. The Mallards at North Mountain have their season in hand: we saw one female who had a half dozen little black and yellow fuzz-balls following her around.  My sister-in-law recently saw a female Wood DSuck and her little line of ducklings on a trail above Ashland Creek.

EMIGRANT LAKE

We then made a quick run out to Emigrant Lake and its eastern slope.   And there we found the Lewis’s Woodpeckers busy among the Oregon white oaks.  This spot’s at Milepost 10 along HIghway 66 and grassy enough that Meadowlarks were singing.  Often Western Bluebirds are there along with Lesser Goldfinches and Acorn Woodpeckers.  Once again a Lewis’s Woodpecker was hanging out at this accommodating cavity near the top of a utility pole.  Nesting in Jackson County?

 

 

Down along the lakeshore we found three Warbling Vireos in the same oak and an Ash-throated Flycatcher.  Then it was backto town for the afternoon matinee at Oregon Shakespeare.

Location:     North Mountain Park
Observation date:     5/7/08
Notes:     Evening Grosbeak not a regular or common bird in Ashland.
Number of species:     31

Canada Goose     2
Mallard     5
Turkey Vulture     2
Band-tailed Pigeon     3
Mourning Dove     4
Vaux’s Swift     5
Acorn Woodpecker     3
Downy Woodpecker     3
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Olive-sided Flycatcher     1
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Pacific-slope Flycatcher     1
Black Phoebe     2
Western Kingbird     2
Western Scrub-Jay     3
Tree Swallow     25
American Robin     2
European Starling     10
Orange-crowned Warbler     2
Yellow-rumped Warbler     1
Common Yellowthroat     2
Wilson’s Warbler     8
Spotted Towhee     1
Lincoln’s Sparrow     1
Golden-crowned Sparrow     1
Black-headed Grosbeak     4
Red-winged Blackbird     10
Brewer’s Blackbird     6
House Finch     2
Lesser Goldfinch     16
Evening Grosbeak     2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)

Our garden has an entirely different complexion and a population very different from three weeks ago, or back in February.  Now it’s the Grosbeak Garden.  I can verify that they begin singing around 5:15 AM daily.  And, boy, do they adore sunflower chips.

 

 

 

 female at her feed

 

 

 

 

she on the left, he on the right

 

 

 

 

Males in uneasy dentente, which lasts about as long as it takes to snap a picture.

This is what these two males looked like a moment later.  In battle.  They seem to use their wings as the number #1 weapon, perhaps because any use of the grosbeak’s gross beak could prove lethal.

 

 

 

Sometimes the testosterone level rises to the point where a male Grosbeak will send off even one of the females, as has just happened here.  This rfemale onthe right is hopping and fluttering backwards from the feeder.

 I have seen males benignly share the feeder with a pair of tiny Lesser Goldfinches, even with the larger Flicker or a Steller’s Jay and Mourning Dove.

Today I had a couple of visiting Bay Area birders, laurel Feigenbaum and her friend Max, and we went first to North Mountain Park.  There were several fine birds to watch but we got a grosbeak bonus (sorry, no pictures): a pair of Evening Grosbeaks.  Talk about gross beaks!

The Black-headed Grosbeak is closely related to cardinals and American bunting.  The Evening is actually a huge finch and sporadically present in the Rogue Valley.  In their book, Guide to Birds of the Rogue Valley, Barbara Massey and Dennis Vroman call the Evening Grosbeak as an erratic spring visitor.

The Bewick’s Wrens, the whistling Wilson’s Warblers, the chattering Bullock’s Orioles–all seem far louder than usual in downtown Medford where they breed along the Bear Creek Greenway.  That Greenway’s in fact only a thirty-yard wide zone of cottonwood, willows, creek and berry brambles surrounded by asphalt, bordered on the east by I-5, the busiest freeway in Oregon.

I could find only one journal article relating to noise pollution and its effects on wild birds: “A Technique for Dorsal Subcutaneous Implantation of Heart Rate Biotelemetry Transmitters in Black Ducks: Application in an Aircraft Noise Response Study”(Condor: Vol. 99, No. 1, January-February, 1997) .  This study concluded that birds very quickly adjusted to the noise and were physiologically unaffected.  It’d be interesting to measure the loudness of birdsong for those nesting along Bear Creek Greenway and those in a quieter, more natural setting.  Perhaps the birds’ hearing is so acutely tuned that what we take for background noise and interference doesn’t even register for them.  Are they that attuned to the tones and pitch of their own species’ sound?

Certainly the noise has not deterred a number of riparian-loving species from spring song and nesting behavior.  At one point I stood less than six feet from a female Lesser Goldfinch working on her tiny grass cup, a nest with a smaller diameter than a tennis ball.  And the presence of competing female Brown-headed Cowbirds indicated I was not the only one appraising nest activity along Bear Creek.  Once I interfered and threw a stick at a female who was clearly looking for the Lesser Goldfinch nest I’d been observing.  That Cowbird was prorbably right back there the moment I walked away.

Lesser Goldfinch are abundant here in all seasons though we’re not far from the northern limit of their range.  They’re not found much to the east of the Rogue and Bear Valleys, nor are they are found often along the Oregon Coast.  Noise or not, they cling to the I-5 corridor.  In Medford some of them seemed to fly up from the creek bottom to nest nthe ornamental trees scattered around the parking lot of the nioeghboring Rogue Valley Mall.

LEAFBIRDS

The canopy was leafed out, pale green and yellowish with a bright blue, sunlit sky beyond.  Small birds, especially yellowish birds, were devilishly hard to discern.

 

 

 

 

A typical ground-up view of the Bear Creek canopy on a sunny day.

Just try picking out a yellow bird:

 

 

 

 

This was definitely a male Bullock’s Oriole.  Females have pale chests.  Note the color progression: Black chin, orangish throat, yellow chest and belly and undertail coverts, black tail feathers on both bottom and top, which you can’t see here.  There were frequent outbursts of the orioles’ paradiddle chatter calls. 

 

And now check this out:

 

 

 

 

 

I took this to be a female Western Tanager.  They were numerous along the creek.  One male provided calm, easy viewing though myc amera had dead batteries at the time.  This bird leaves me with mystery unsolved: why are the tail feathers so apparently light colored?  It was not a Summer Tanager, but apparently a Western.  All my books show dark undertails for both genders?

 I was grateful for the presence of the Mourning Doves, posing, observable even in deep shade and dense foliage.  I thank their placid demeanor.  I have noted in our garden they often frighten the other birds off the platform feeder, even the larger, more aggressive jays will flap away. Could it be the doves’s wing-whirring sound is an adpatation to make them sound ferocious or at least defensive?  Is that why the jays flea?

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were nesting Wrentits along the Greenway.  They huddle in the dense blackberry brambles so detested by the native plant purists.  If such folks succeed in getting all the Himalayan berry brambles pulled out I fear for the future of the local Wrentits, already confined to narrow strips of habitat along the creeks and rivers here.  One pair of Wrentits took exception to my presence.  They scolded me with a repetitive sound that reminded me of the a playing card hitting the spokes of a bicycle.  When we were kids that was considered way cool: the playing card was jammed into the bar connecting the axle to the bike’s frame, then the turning wheel would snap the playing card against each passing spoke.  “Thwak, thwak, thwak…”  No doubt the Wrentit evolved his scold before there were bicycles on the Greenway path.

My own pishing efforts were largely pointless, less audible than the whine of passing eighteen-wheelers.  But once I did bring a single White-crowned Sparrow to the peak of a berry mound.  Otherwise I found standing and waiting the best birding technique here.  A Red-tailed Hawk flew onto a utility pole. Red-tailed and tailed by a Scrub-jay.  A couple minutes later, exit stage right followed by a Brewer’s Blackbird. 

One male Black-headed Grosbeak seemed to be sunning himself on his leafy porch.  I have watched my garden’s male bird do the same thing.  Perch on a willow branch, close his eyes to the sun and absorb the solar energy through his black feathers.  The Grosbeaks were in song as well.  As I was writing this before dawn, my home male began singing at exactly 5:14 AM.  He continued for several minutes before taking a breather.  So far this is my favorite picture of my garden Grosbeaks:

Both genders of the grosbeaks are capable of song.  And both have that seed-crusher beak.  They seem to easily share the feeders with other birds, even the much larger Flicker.  They’re not easily frightened and do not fear the jays it seems.  The beak speaks.

The best performance of my hour along the greenway: a singing Bewick’s Wren.  He perched on top of a small cottonwood limb, threw back his head, raising his beak to the heavens.  With each crystalline note, each deft trill, every complex chord his tail would vibrate, his whole tiny body shake.  There perched just over a third of an ounce of musical energy, songs from across the eons all encoded on tiny brain cells.  The iPod has so far to evolve to even begin to compete.

My Greenway bird list:  Canada Goose, Red-tailed Hawk, Mourning Dove, Rock Dove, Downy Woodpecker, Warbling Vireo, Tree Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Raven, Scrub-jay, Eurasian Starling, Black-capped Chickadee, American Robin, Wrentit, Bewick’s Wren, Western Tanager, Wilson’s Warbler, White-crowned Sparrow, Brewer’s Blackbird, Bullock’s Oriole, House Finch, Lesser Goldfinch.

That’s the male Northern Flicker and the male Black-headed Grosbeak sharing the platform feeder.  Through a window so the blurs are part of my art. 

Easier to pose, some wildflowers:

In the sunflower or aster family it’s

Wyethia augusifolia.

Please note small dark bee on an ear to the left of this caption.

 

Then there’s this hillside specialist, in sweet-scented bloom all over the Siskiyous and the foothills of the Cascades:

 

White manzanita, Archtostaphylox viscida.

Ash-throated Flycatcher, picture by

Calvin Lou. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I led a birdwalk from Klamath Bird Observatory on the slope of Lower Table Rock.  We were moving slowly so we didn’t make it up the 800 foot of elevation increase to the top. Wwe got about halfway up through the forest.   Too many birds, not enough hours.  The Ash-throateds were the first I’d seen this spring, and one provided good treetop views.  That’s what they like.  And he gave his cranky cough-like call three or four times.

The season and warming sun provided a birdsong symphony from sparrows to swallows, wrens to finches.  We were almost constantly within earshot of scolding Spotted Towhees.  Best aerial act of the day: Western Kingbirds.  On the lower, grassy part of the walk they were fly-catching and down into the grass.  Up in the denser oak forest they were zipping over the treetops.  The only bird seen fleetingly and never well were the orioles who stayed in the canopy and never perched within view.  Our special thanks to a very co-operative Nashville Warbler who was in open shade, and his bright colors were appreciated by the spectators.

our Hutton’s Vireo was just a voice in the leaves.  As often is the case.

FLOWERS

There were scads of windflowers in bloom.  The camas lilies were just beginning to open their tall stalks of deep blue flowers with the delicate yellow stamens.  They are officially Camassia leichlinii.  These are different from the white-flowered death camas.  The blue-flowered plants provided edible roots to the Native Americans of the region, and were even eaten in desparation by the starving men of the Lewis & Clark expedition during their first winter in the west. That was just over two centuries ago.  In the Rogue Valley the Takelma tribe depended onthe camas as a main source of food along with acorns, salmon and deer.  The latter were not hunted by bow-and-arrow, but hearded into enclosures.

Blooming in patches along the trail: blue-eyed Mary’s:

Collinsia grandiflora. 

Also known as “large innocence,”

a member of the figwort family and thus

related to the penstemons.  Other flowers included woodland star, sea blush and desert parsley. 

 

BIRD CHECKLIST,  Location:     Lower Table Rock
Observation date:     5/3/08
Notes:     Singing birds: all three finches that we saw, Grosbeak, Oriole, California Towhee, Spotted Towhee, Nashville and Yellow-reumped Warblers, Chipping Sparrow, Meadowlark, Bewicks; Wren.  Ash-throated Flycatcher was calling.
Number of species:     42

Canada Goose     2
Turkey Vulture     10
Cooper’s Hawk     1
Red-tailed Hawk     1
Mourning Dove     4
Anna’s Hummingbird     3
Rufous Hummingbird     2
Lewis’s Woodpecker     2
Acorn Woodpecker     15
Downy Woodpecker     1
Pacific-slope Flycatcher     1
Ash-throated Flycatcher     2
Western Kingbird     4
Hutton’s Vireo     1
Western Scrub-Jay     6
Common Raven     1
Tree Swallow     35
Violet-green Swallow     2
Black-capped Chickadee     1
Oak Titmouse     4
Bushtit     1
White-breasted Nuthatch     1
Bewick’s Wren     2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher     2
Western Bluebird     6
European Starling     8
Orange-crowned Warbler     10
Nashville Warbler     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     2
Wilson’s Warbler     5
Spotted Towhee     8
California Towhee     3
Chipping Sparrow     5
Lark Sparrow     1
Black-headed Grosbeak     6
Western Meadowlark     12
Brown-headed Cowbird     1
Bullock’s Oriole     4
Purple Finch     2
House Finch     6
Lesser Goldfinch     14

Two Sandhill Cranes, bugling as they fly over Howard Prairie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four White Pelicans fishing on Howard Prairie Lake.  We learned that a quarter-million fingerling fish had just been put into the lake yesterday.  Yum.  In one small cove about two dozen Common Mergansers were gathered and fishing, along with three female Buffleheads.  And then was this guy at the Howard Prairie Resort, just hanging out, dwarfing all the Ring-billed Gulls. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This pelican was very relaxed, a motor boat passing within ten feet did get him to stand up, but then he resumed his nap.  Probably tired from digesting all those little raw fingerlings.  Apparently these White Pelicans do not breed, these are pelicans just stayin’ cool.

 

 

 

These two Kestrel, female on the right here, were nesting once again in dead tree near Howard Prairie Lake.  They’re sharing it with a colony of Starlings, also eager to take advantage of the many holes already drilled in this tree.

This is the female Kestrel and she appeared to be annoyed that a Starling had gone into a particular hole just to the left of this perch.  She had flown down from the treetop just after the Starling disappeared into the hole at this level.

 

 

I made this circuit with Dick Ashford and Bob Black.  They were scouting for their Birdathon trip tomorrow to help raise money for Rogue Valley Audubon. [Later they could report their field trip netted over sixty species on this route.] We got over 70 separate species by 3 p.m.  And we had several good sightings.  Clear, close-up views of Wilson’s Snipe.  We heard both their courtship calls and heard their wing-whir sounds.  At one point they had us believing their was a diurnal Screech-owl, but it was the Snipe calls.

We all agreed that any day in the field with views of both eagles is a good day. Our first Golden was at Howard Prairie, the Bald was near Hyatt Lake. The Hyatt Lake Osprey were both calling from atop their nest tree,  its trunk still surrounded by ice.  The White-tailed Kite appeared to be on a nest south of Highway 66 at the southeast corner of Emigrant Lake down at about 2500 feet.  Most unusual, there is a Red-shoulderd Hawk once again nesting, or at least calling, in the woods along the ditch road north of Howard Prairie.  This is over 4500 feet in elevation.  The RS Hawk is usually a riparian bird here, and not all that common tough Dick has a pair once again nesting near his home.  That’s appropriate, Dick is our hawk-eyed raptor expert hereabouts.

VESPERS AND FINCHES

I saw and heard my first-ever Oregon Vesper Sparrows at a county campground on the northeast edge of Howard Prairie Lake.  None of us recognized the musical three-part song.  But at a later location we got serenaded by a Vesper Sparrow perched nearby on a fence post, and singing repeatedly.  No better way to see a lifer, several flitting across the short grass just newly emerged from ground just newly emerged itself, from snow that was still there two weeks ago.  And several times we’d get our Vesper song.

On the way down to the valley we drove along Tyler Creek Road, there we had both vireos in the same wooded marshlet.  On the valley floor we turned up Enigrant Creek Road and began to climb, quickly getting into a habitat dominated by a few oaks and dense ceanothus underbrush.  Here we saw the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a scarce bird here, present only in such habitat.  That’s also where we saw our snigng Nashville Warbler.   He’s a logn way from Nashville,and he sang without a country music twang.

Then down on Buckhorn Springs Road there were well-stocked, well-loved feeders in a yard.

 Streaky birds are Pine Siskins, the other guys are American Goldfinches. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location:     Howard Prairie Circuit
Observation date:     5/2/08
Notes:     Includes Tyler reek Road and resevoir on Keene Creek.
Hyatt Lake still mostly frozen over.  It’s above 5,000 feet in elevation.  Howard Prairie at about 4500 feet.
Number of species:     51
HP–Howard Prairie.   HL–Hyatt Lake.  T–Tyler Creek Rd.
K–Keene Creek
Canada Goose     34   HP,HL
Wood Duck     3  HP
Mallard     8

Greater Scaup     2   K
Lesser Scaup     2    K
Bufflehead     5      K
Common Merganser     35  HL
 
Western Grebe     20   HP
Clark’s Grebe     2    HP
American White Pelican     20
Double-crested Cormorant     35
Turkey Vulture     8
Osprey     3   HP.  HL.
Bald Eagle     1     HL
Red-shouldered Hawk     1   HP
Red-tailed Hawk     2
Golden Eagle     2   HP.  T.
American Kestrel     2   HP, nesting.
Killdeer     4
Ring-billed Gull     40   HP
California Gull     2     HP
Mourning Dove     2
Anna’s Hummingbird     2
Rufous Hummingbird     2
Acorn Woodpecker     25
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     2
Western Kingbird     2
Cassin’s Vireo     1   T
Warbling Vireo     1   T
Steller’s Jay     4
Western Scrub-Jay     2
Common Raven     4
Mountain Chickadee     1     HP
Red-breasted Nuthatch     3
Bewick’s Wren     1
Mountain Bluebird     4    HP
American Robin     12
European Starling     15
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)     8
Spotted Towhee     2
Chipping Sparrow     8
Vesper Sparrow     20
Lark Sparrow     1
Song Sparrow     1
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     10
Red-winged Blackbird     6
Western Meadowlark     8
Brewer’s Blackbird     4

Red Crossbill     5   HP
Pine Siskin     8   HL
American Goldfinch     5

Location:     Emigrant Lake
Observation date:     5/2/08
Notes:     Includes Buckhorn Springs Road and Emigrant Creek Road, as well as milepost 10 on Highway 66, east of Emigrant Lake.
Number of species:     43
Canada Goose     4
Mallard     2
Northern Shoveler     1
Common Merganser     3
Western Grebe     2
Great Blue Heron     1
Green Heron     1
Turkey Vulture     2
Osprey     1
White-tailed Kite     1
Red-tailed Hawk     1
American Coot     2
Ring-billed Gull     4
Mourning Dove     2
Anna’s Hummingbird     1
Rufous Hummingbird     1
Lewis’s Woodpecker     15
Acorn Woodpecker     6
Western Kingbird     1
Western Scrub-Jay     6
American Crow     4
Common Raven     2
Tree Swallow     6
Cliff Swallow     18
Barn Swallow     4
Red-breasted Nuthatch     1
White-breasted Nuthatch     1
American Dipper     1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     1
Western Bluebird     2
European Starling     8
Nashville Warbler     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)     4
Black-throated Gray Warbler     1
Spotted Towhee     2
Chipping Sparrow     1
Red-winged Blackbird     6
Brewer’s Blackbird     20
Brown-headed Cowbird     1
House Finch     4
Pine Siskin     25
Lesser Goldfinch     15
American Goldfinch     25

May Day according to tradition is a Red-letter day.  This one filled the promise.

I met up with Bay Area birders,  Ronald W. Stovitz and Danell Zeavin, at 8AM at Ashland Plaza.  We went immediately uphill to Glenview Road for the morning waming.  Ronald and Danell wanted to bird.  Breakfast would wait.  As the sun began to warm the trees the little, hungry gleaners started to appear.  Best was a singing male MacGillivray’s Warbler.  You blogster regulars have seen this picture before, but I may never get a better one of this usually secretive shrubbery resident:

We got great views of a Red-breasted Sapsucker, brightly colored  but no way to tell if it was a male or female.  We saw a Robin still lining its nest just above the trail.  And we encountered at least three singing Black-headed Grosbeaks.  This picture was taken at my garden feeder later in the day,  but…you get the picture:

 His and hers Grosbeak.

Mr. and Mrs. BH Grosbeak, table for two.

“You getting enough to eat, darling?”

 

 

 

 

 

Still, not hungry enough to stop birding we raced across town to North Mountain Park as the sun was warming the trees and creekside bushes.  More warblers, with Wilson’s and Orange-crowned being the most abundant.  Somehow we found only female Common Yellowthroats around the ponds.  A quick peek at the Bushtit nest near the boardwalk.  All seemed to be in fine fettle as both Bushtit adults were feeding the willows there.  A small flycatcher got past us.  Tree Swallows seemed to be fussing over nesting holes.  Housing crisis in the Hirundinidae family?  We can all sympathize. 

In the usual spot where the little stream drains between the ball fields, the Bullock’s Oriole.  And he was surrounded by Orange-crowns and a single shy Warbling Vireo.  “Here I am, here I go, now I’m gone.” Our lone vireo vision of the day.  As usual at North Mountain there was an Acorn Woodpecker visible and both local goldfinch species were trilling and posing.

At the small ponds we got three good, clear looks at the Green Heron in flight, one static view of him trying to hiding between thin branches with no leaves.   Just before we left we ran into anothe pair of birders admiring the male oriole.  Compared notes.  The man said, “Have you seen any Nashville Warblers?”

“Not so far today,” I said.  Then I looked up into the oriole’s tree. There they were.  Two Nashville Warblers.  Too bad he didn’t ask about Chat, still don’t have one yet this year though KBO mist-netted their first of the season just yesterday. 

EMIGRANT LAKE

Next we drove six miles out to Emigrant Lake southeast of Ashland.  There were a few lingering scaup, nesting Coots, fishing DC Cormorants.  A pair of Osprey were fishing the lake.  No success that we could see.  There was one Blue Heron working the shallows, and a very white spot in the willows at the lake’s southeastern corner turned out to be a Great Egret in its feathery breeding plumes.  These birds are not known to next here in Jackson County.  Neither are the Eurasian Collared-doves that have been regular only about twenty miles to the north.  We saw only a single bird.

The lone Clark’s Grebe was a happy surprise.  It was fishing apart from a handful of Western.  The Clark’s do breed in south-central Oregon, east of the Cascades.  This bird was in breeding plumage, the white on the face rising over the eye.  The beak a bright yellow. This grebe’s not named for Clark of Lewis &….  It’s named for an army officer of the mid-1800s.  However, Lewis’s Woodpcecker was discovered by Lewis the famous explorer and is named for him.  These birds are still to be found east of Emigrant Lake at milepost 10 on Oregon Hiway 66.  One bird spent several minutes just hanging out at the mouth of a woodpecker hole drilled into a utility pole.  Nesting would be unusual for Jackson County.

Clark did get his namesake, the enjoyable Clark;s Nutcrtacker, star of the avian show at Crater Lake. 

There weas a wonderfully songful Western Meadowlark at the Lewis’s location.  Also, Western Bluebirds and calling Acorn Woodpeckers.  A couple miles to the east we saw a Golden Eagle soaring high above steep grassy inclines.  Nearer at hand we had the small Kestrel over a grassy pasture.

Altogether we had well over sixty species for the day’s birding.  Abnd I got home in time to get a good photo of the dining grosbeaks.

Location:     Glenview Drive–Ashland
Observation date:     5/1/08
Notes:     Robins nesting.  MacGillivray’s male sang in oepn view for several seconds.
Number of species:     17

Turkey Vulture     3
Rufous Hummingbird     1
Red-breasted Sapsucker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Empidonax sp.     1
Steller’s Jay     3
Common Raven     2
Black-capped Chickadee     1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     1
American Robin     2
Orange-crowned Warbler     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     1
MacGillivray’s Warbler     1
Wilson’s Warbler     1
Spotted Towhee     3
Black-headed Grosbeak     3
Lesser Goldfinch     4

Location:     North Mountain Park
Observation date:     5/1/08
Notes:     Bushtit nest visible and intact.  Oriole was vocal.  No sign of a Chat this morning.
Number of species:     29

Mallard     2
Green Heron     1
Anna’s Hummingbird     1
Acorn Woodpecker     1
Downy Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Empidonax sp.     1
Warbling Vireo     1
Western Scrub-Jay     8
Common Raven     1
Tree Swallow     12
Black-capped Chickadee     2
Bushtit     2
American Robin     1
European Starling     4
Orange-crowned Warbler     7
Nashville Warbler     2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)     4
Common Yellowthroat     4
Wilson’s Warbler     10
Spotted Towhee     2
Song Sparrow     1
Red-winged Blackbird     15
Brewer’s Blackbird     10
Bullock’s Oriole     1
House Finch     1
Lesser Goldfinch     3
American Goldfinch     5
House Sparrow     4
Location:     Emigrant Lake
Observation date:     5/1/08
Notes:     Lewis’s Woodpeckers may be preparing to nest, area count include oak hillsides around milepost 10 on Highway 66, east of Emigrant Lake.
Number of species:     49

Canada Goose     6
Mallard     3
Lesser Scaup     8
Common Merganser     1
California Quail     1
Western Grebe     5
Clark’s Grebe     1
Double-crested Cormorant     4
Great Blue Heron     1
Great Egret     1
Turkey Vulture     18
Osprey     2
Red-tailed Hawk     1
Golden Eagle     1
American Kestrel     1
American Coot     4
Ring-billed Gull     2
Band-tailed Pigeon     6
Eurasian Collared-Dove     1
Mourning Dove     2
Vaux’s Swift     4
Anna’s Hummingbird     1
Lewis’s Woodpecker     15
Acorn Woodpecker     8
Empidonax sp.     1
Western Kingbird     4
Western Scrub-Jay     20
American Crow     8
Common Raven     6
Tree Swallow     50
Violet-green Swallow     4
Northern Rough-winged Swallow     1
Cliff Swallow     8
Barn Swallow     10
Black-capped Chickadee     2
Oak Titmouse     4
White-breasted Nuthatch     2
Western Bluebird     4
American Robin     2
European Starling     6
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)     1
Wilson’s Warbler     2
Song Sparrow     1
White-crowned Sparrow     1
Golden-crowned Sparrow     1
Red-winged Blackbird     6
Western Meadowlark     3
Brewer’s Blackbird     4
House Finch     2

After a day of overcast, mountain snow, valley hail, occasional rain, temps in the 40s, there came a bit of afternoon sunlight as the sun went down to the west.  We went to the east side of Ashland Creek Canyon, and the forest there was aflutter with feeding birds.  It was largely a flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers, with just enough less common gems to keep the search exciting.  One bright male Western Tanager was certainly a jewel–golden yellow with a bright orange head.  Then I spotted an otherwise drab little bird with a sunshine face.  It was the first of the Hermit Warblers for the season.  A brilliantly colored male: raven black chin, sunflower-colored face with a coal black eye in the center.   There were at least two  more in the swirl of birds that were moving throuhg the oaks, madrone and ponderosa.

Then one twelve-foot tree was decorated by two Nashville Warblers.  Up in a Douglas-fir the only Townsend’s Warbler I could sort from the crowd.  One stubby oak briefly held a half dozen fluttering Yellow-rumps.  So in the waning hours of the month onw new bird for the year: my first Hermit Warblers.  They’ll remain in this area, move up into to the evergreen canopy to nest.  They become very difficult to find unless you’re on a steep slope looking down on forest below.

Location:     Glenview Drive–Ashland
Observation date:     4/30/08
Number of species:     12

Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Cassin’s Vireo     3
Common Raven     2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     1
American Robin     1
Nashville Warbler     4
Yellow-rumped Warbler     75
Townsend’s Warbler     1
Hermit Warbler     3
Wilson’s Warbler     1
Western Tanager     2
Black-headed Grosbeak     1

The NRDC today announced they’d won a court case on behalf of olar bears. Of course, the feederal judge cannot really compell the current regime in D.C. to do anything and thus nothing will be done, but it could at least hold off increased hunting of polar bears by Americans going to Canada. And perhaps this ruling will make it easier for the next regime to take action in 2009.

“OAKLAND, CA - A federal judge has found the Bush administration guilty
of violating the Endangered Species Act and ordered the administration
to issue a final listing decision for the polar bear by May 15, 2008.
The polar bear, suffering as its Arctic sea ice habitat melts far faster
than forecast, is one of the world’s most imperiled animals due to
global warming.

The Honorable Claudia Wilkin ruled for the plaintiffs - Center for
Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace
- on all issues in finding that the Bush administration has violated the
law by missing the deadline for a final polar bear decision by nearly
four months. This decision is the result of a petition by the groups,
initially submitted in 2005, to list the polar bear under the Endangered
Species Act.

“Today’s decision is a huge victory for the polar bear,” said Kassie
Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity
and lead author of the 2005 petition seeking the Endangered Species Act
listing. “By May 15th the polar bear should receive the protections it
deserves under the Endangered Species Act, which is the first step
toward saving the polar bear and the entire Arctic ecosystem from global
warming.”

The Interior Department had requested an additional delay, until June
30, 2008, for its lawyers to finish reviewing and revising the decision.
The Court disallowed further delay, stating: “Defendants offer no
specific facts that would justify the existing delay, much less further
delay. To allow Defendants more time would violate the mandated listing
deadlines under the ESA and congressional intent that time is of the
essence in listing threatened species.”

“The federal court has thrown this incredible animal a lifeline,” said
Andrew Wetzler, director of NRDC’s Endangered Species Project. “The
Endangered Species Act requires the decision to be based solely on
science, and the science is absolutely unambiguous that the polar bear
deserves protection.”

Judge Wilkin also ordered that the listing decision take effect
immediately, forgoing a 30-day waiting period that applies unless
circumstances warrant faster action. In rejecting the administration’s
claim that the polar bear will not be harmed in the absence of
Endangered Species Act protection, the judge pointed to a pending
proposal to permit oil industry operations in the Chukchi Sea, and
stated: “Defendants fail to show that the thirty-day waiting period will
not pose a threat to the polar bear.”

“We have won in the court of public opinion and of law,” said Melanie
Duchin, Greenpeace global warming campaigner in Alaska. “We hope that
this decision marks the end of the Bush administration’s delays and
denial so that immediate action may be taken to protect polar bears from
extinction.”

Polar bears live only in the Arctic and are totally dependent on the sea
ice for all of their essential needs. The rapid warming of the Arctic
and melting of the sea ice pose an overwhelming threat to the polar
bear, already suffering starvation, drowning, and population declines as
its sea-ice habitat melts away.

Since the petition to protect polar bears under the Endangered Species
Act was first filed, new science paints a dim picture of the polar
bear’s future. In September, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that
two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population would likely be extinct
by 2050, including all polar bears within the United States. Several
leading scientists now predict the Arctic could be ice-free in the
summer as early as 2012.

Listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act guarantees
federal agencies will be obligated to ensure that any action they
authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize the polar bears’
continued existence or adversely modify their critical habitat, and the
Fish and Wildlife Service will be required to prepare a recovery plan
for the polar bear, specifying measures necessary for its protection.

In December 2005, the groups sued the Bush administration for failing to
respond to the original petition. In February of 2006, as a result of
that first lawsuit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that
protection of polar bears “may be warranted” and commenced a full status
review of the species. A settlement agreement in that case committed the
Service to make the second of three required findings in the listing
process by December 27, 2006, at which time the Service announced the
proposal to list the species as threatened. The proposed listing rule
was published in the Federal Register on January 9, 2007. By law, the
Service was required to make a final listing decision within one year of
the proposal. The Service ignored the January 9, 2008 statutory deadline
for making a final decision, prompting the current lawsuit.

# # #

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit
conservation organization with more than 40,000 members dedicated to the
protection of endangered species and wild places.
www.biologicaldiversity.org

Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organization with 2.7 million
members worldwide that uses peaceful protest and creative communication
to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions for the
future. www.greenpeace.org

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit
organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists
dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in
1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from
offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and
Beijing. www.nrdc.org”

Most birding rained out today except for a brief hike along Ashland Creek Greenway, and then looking out the window at our newly installed thistle feeder.  Our previous thistle sock was ravished and gutted by a yard raider of unknown genetic make-up. We have our suspicions.  It took about 3 minutes for the new bright yellow thistle seed sock to get discovered.

Note the shallow v-shape in the tails of these American Goldfinches.  They share that with the Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Red Crossbill and Lesser Goldfinch in their family.  The House Finch has a generally flat-bottomed tail.  The yellow of the these male finches matched the dandelions that proudly parade across our lawn.  Yesterday my wife had carefully plucked every flower and seed balloon from our dandelion field.  Today: more flowers.

There’s little bird variety in our garden today.  Didn’t even get a glimpse of the Red-breasted Nuthatch who may have headed back uphill.  The Chestnut-backed Chickadees have been gone for days and the Mountain Chickadees left about a month ago.  Haven’t seen a Siskin, not any sparrows for days now.  Even the Spotted Towhees stayed under cover. Yesterday I’d have bet the Juncos had all gone away.  Today there were dozens back at and under the feeders.

One new bird for the year: a wet but game Warbling Vireo foraged in our garden between rain events. 

That gives me over 115 bird species here in Jackson County this month.  And 140 for the month of April including the easy pickings of shorebirds and water-loving species when I made a 48-hour drive down to Marin County, California, and back last week.

GREENWAY

The Spotted Towhees were boldly atop their territorial bushes.  Zinging as we passed and then zinging any other creature within hearing.   The Bullock’s Orioles were as visible though prone to be about thirty feet higher up on a treetop.  Between rain squalls the swallows were ravenously hunting over any open water or promising marsh.  They seem divide the skies by vertical strata.  The Northern Rough-winged took the near weedtop, while the height-prone Tree Swallows were hundreds of feet above the ground in some cases.  A Vaux’s Swift was at mid-level with the Barn and VG Swallows.

The Wilson’s Warblers were plentiful at creekside.  Their  bold sunny colors contrasting with the wet, dark green berry bushes.

FLOWER OF THE DAY

With many unfamiliar plants about, I am trying to learn a bit about a new flower every day this season.  Here’s today’s, found by my wife along Bear Creek, in a shaded fencerow:

 

This is giant trillium or giant wake-robin.  In the lily family it’s Trillium albidum. The flowers are about two inches high and the leaves are about eight inches long from the stem to the tip.  They like moist woods, and right now, that’s what we have around here: moist woods.

 

 

Location:     Bear Valley Greenway–Ashland
Observation date:     4/29/08
Notes:     Singing birds: Red-winged Blackbirds, Bullock’s Oriole, Black-headed Grosbeak, House Finch, Lesser Goldfinch, Bewick’s Wren.
Number of species:     34

Canada Goose     2
Wood Duck     3
Common Merganser     1
Turkey Vulture     1
Killdeer     1
Mourning Dove     1
Vaux’s Swift     1
Acorn Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Pacific-slope Flycatcher     1
Western Scrub-Jay     6
American Crow     1
Common Raven     2
Tree Swallow     50
Violet-green Swallow     4
Northern Rough-winged Swallow     8
Barn Swallow     20
Bewick’s Wren     3
Hermit Thrush     2
American Robin     4
European Starling     15
Orange-crowned Warbler     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     3
Wilson’s Warbler     4
Spotted Towhee     6
Lark Sparrow     1
Song Sparrow     2
Black-headed Grosbeak     1
Red-winged Blackbird     50
Brewer’s Blackbird     24
Bullock’s Oriole     3
House Finch     6
Lesser Goldfinch     12
House Sparrow     7

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)