Black Phoebe photo by May Woon.

Bill Hering and I birded Agate Lake on a mild morning this week.  It was about forty degrees and not very windy.  We saw three flycacthers, clearly doing fine in the coldest part of the year.  All three were hunting along the edge of the lake though we could not see any sign of insect activity.  Two were Say’s Phoebe and one was a Black.  These are the hardiest of the flycatcher family in North America, surviving weeks of weather when the night temps drop below freezing.   How do they do it while their flycatcher peers are all bouncing around some forest canopy many hundreds of miles to the south?  Or at least lurking in some desert canyon in southern Arizona?  Well, the Black Phoebe will eat small fish!  The Say’s strays from his predatory ways to eat a berry or two in faux waxwing style.  And eighty years ago William Dawson wrote he suspected the Black Phoebe of eating elderberries, but those have long since disappeared hereabouts.

At Agate Lake we also had one healthy looking coyote, a yound White-tailed Kite withg stunning white edging around his brownish back feathers, four Bald Eagles and a slew of ducks.

Before Agate Lake Buil and checkedon Eleanor the Barred Owl.  She seems to have flown her roost.  No sign of her except for a little freeze-dried white-wash on the asphalt beneath her former sleeping perch.

The Waxwings continue to be abundant in this area.  A call from Dick Ashford alerted me to a Boheamian inthe Cedar Waxwings swirling through his neighborhood.  By the time I got there snow was falling along with the visibility and the various flocks over the treetops proved elusive.  Maybe next time.

I did add another Oregon lifer (#184); 19 Canvasbacks in a pond along the Central Point section of the Bear Creek Greenway.  The Canvasback is an uncommon inland duck in this part of Oregon.  I now have all the regular inland ducks for Oregon so I need a coastal trip for the scoters, RB Merganser, et al.  On my drive north to Central Point today there was  a Golden Eagle soaring over the freeway just outside of Ashland.  And Bill and I spotted one as we drove past the Medford Airport on our way home from Agate Lake.  Ho-hum…

 One morning this week there were seven Bufflehead on the small swimming resevoir about a half mile up the Ashland Creek Canyon from our house.  That same frigid morning there was a calling Pileated far up the ridge and three Band-tailed Pigeons flew acorss the canyon.

Regular garden birds this season:  Junco (up to sixty), Chestnut-backed Chickadees (6), Mountain Chickadees (2), Red-breasted Nuthatch, Steller’s Jays (6),Scrub-jays(2), Flicker (1), Bushtits (>20) , Mourning Doves (6), Spotted Towhee male (1).  Some days I spot a lone Song Sparrow.  The Anna’s Hummingbird comes out of torpor when the temps climb above 36, really cold days the hummer seems to sleep it off.  The Balck-capped Chickadees seemed to have moved downhill.  Not sure why the Downy doesn’[t come to the suet, I see them around the neighborhood.  Nothing in the yard attracts the Robins, except water which is abundant in puddles and gullies right now.

Location:     Agate Lake
Observation date:     1/10/08
Notes:     BillHering and saw two immature Bald Eagles and an immature White-tailed Kite.Close-up views of all three.  One coyote as well.
Number of species:     32

American Wigeon     16
Mallard     30
Green-winged Teal     25
Ring-necked Duck     250
Lesser Scaup     8
Ruddy Duck     350
Ring-necked Pheasant     1
Great Blue Heron     2
White-tailed Kite     1--immature with paleo brown back feathers, each with white edges, very striking at close viewing
Bald Eagle     4-two daults and pair of immatures
Red-tailed Hawk     7
American Coot     120
Mourning Dove     20
Western Screech-Owl     1--answered our pishing into his woods, not seen
Lewis's Woodpecker     8--mostly iun woods on west side of lake
Acorn Woodpecker     10
Northern Flicker     4
Black Phoebe     1
Say's Phoebe     2
Western Scrub-Jay     1
Common Raven     15
Black-capped Chickadee     2
American Robin     1
European Starling     60
Yellow-rumped Warbler     1
Spotted Towhee     2
Golden-crowned Sparrow     30
Dark-eyed Junco     250
Red-winged Blackbird     80
Western Meadowlark     11
Brewer's Blackbird     10
Lesser Goldfinch     4

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