Here are three different shots of a the same adult male Bullock’s Oriole along Bear Creek in Ashland this morning.  Spotted by Bill Hering this guy sat in full sunlight, and waited until I got a couple decent shots.

 

 

 

 There was also a busy oriole nest not far from the dog park’s parking lot.  The top had been ripped off the orioles’ sack nest and three nearly grown juvenile oriole sat upright in their convertible nest, mouths open when either parent arrived with food.  Here’s my best photogtraphic effort:

You can barely make out the nest shape behind the oak leavess.  What you can’t see is that the orioles harvested magnetic audio tape to use as part of the material woven into this nest.  Bushtits will often do the same thing in their woven nests.

 

 

 

 

 

In this shot you can make out the roundish shape of the woven nest.  in this nest were three soon-to-fledge young.

This bird was given its name by the British ornithologist, William Swainson who has own namesake birds.  It was named in 1827 for William Bullock, Senior and Junior.  Both were naturalists who explored Mexico in the early 19th Century.  T^he elder Bullock setting up a museum of curios that pre-dated the Biritish Museum of Natural History. The first specimens of Bullock’s Oriole to reach Britain came from Mexico.

Check out this bird, and the species is?

 TREE SWALLOW.  This is a newly fledged bird along Ashland creek, we saw it on our Rogue Valley Audubon walk this morning.  That dark collar is the true mark of a juvenile Tree Swallow. Next spring this bird will have a clear white chest if it survives the rigors of a fall migration.

This is the kind of day it was as a visiting birder and I made our way up Mount Ashland. The air was crisp, dry already though snow still lies in the deeper shade of high elevation ravines.  The birds and plants are just beginning the warm season. Insect populations are rising with the temperatures.  New leaves show no signs of drought or being chewed on.  Male birds are still singing for patriotism and empire.  The only breezes are warm air rushing up from the deep valleys to replace the colder air of the mountain.  There s a feeling of expectation and impending, waiting and arriving.  And the looming pyramidal peak of Mount Shasta poked through the lowly cloud cover of moisture that will; be a memory.

Look very carefully and you will see the faint, ghostly white of snow-crowned Shasta above the layer of gray clouds.  

Before Mounta Ashland, the highest peak of the Siskiyous, we’d stopped in to see my poet Calliope Hummingbird on Tolan Creek Road.  He was not having a good morning.  Female woes.  Specifically, this female:

This female Anna’s was intruding on the Calliope’s “own” willow thicket.  TRhge tiny male Calliope would buzz up and down the willow trying to spot the intruding female Anna’s.  We could tel lhe was looking for something but had no idea what.  Suddenly he darted into the one willow, buzzing like a JUne bug caught in a Venetian blind.  Then we realized there was a second bird.  Buzzing back at him. They helicoptered up and down beak to beak. You stab me, I’ll stab you, face off time.  When they broke apart she would settle onto a willow branch and that’s when I got my picture, between violent-sounding showdowns.

SIX THOUSAND FEET UP

Female Mountain Bluebird in evergreens downhill from main paved parking lot at Mount Ashland Ski Resort.  We also saw Cassin’s Finch, Pine Siskin, Chipping Sparrow there.  Another group of birders had a female Calliope Hummingbird nearby.

This is a male Lazuli Bunting atop a pine, happened to have been on Tolan Creek Road but wre sawwe and heard them all the way up to 6500 feet on the unforested areas of Mount Ashland.  This was a Townsend’s Solitaire.  Trust me, the song was long and unmistakable.

Tis was taken on Thursday.  Saturdya we got sa close-up fly over at the ski resort but no chance ot take another, better picture.

 

 

 

 

Spring is late above 6000 feet this year but this lone flower is already in bloom:

 Elk’s lip, Caltha leptodepala.  Also called marsh marigold because it grows along the streams carrying snowmelt down toward the valleys. 

 

 

 

 

Up on Tolman Creek Road at a more modest elevation the thimbleberries were in bloom:

 

Blossoms are about two inches across, the leave sup to eight inches in width, fuzzy but not barbed.

 

 

 

 This is what the habitat looks like on Toman Creek Road:

Tolman Creek Road
Observation date:     6/14/08
Number of species:     13

Red-tailed Hawk     1
Mourning Dove     4
Anna’s Hummingbird     1
Calliope Hummingbird     1
Pacific-slope Flycatcher     1
Western Scrub-Jay     1
Common Raven     1
Nashville Warbler     2
MacGillivray’s Warbler     1
Western Tanager     4
Spotted Towhee     3
Chipping Sparrow     1
Black-headed Grosbeak     4
Location:     Mount Ashland
Observation date:     6/14/08
Number of species:     27

Mountain Quail     4
Turkey Vulture     1
Red-breasted Sapsucker     1
Olive-sided Flycatcher     5
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Dusky Flycatcher     1
Steller’s Jay     2
Common Raven     2
Mountain Chickadee     10
Red-breasted Nuthatch     6
Mountain Bluebird     2
Townsend’s Solitaire     2
Hermit Thrush     6
American Robin     2
Nashville Warbler     2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)     6
Hermit Warbler     1
Wilson’s Warbler     1
Western Tanager     4
Green-tailed Towhee     6
Chipping Sparrow     2
Lincoln’s Sparrow     1
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     15
Black-headed Grosbeak     4
Lazuli Bunting     8
Cassin’s Finch     4
Pine Siskin     6

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

Location:     Bear Valley Greenway–Ashland
Observation date:     6/15/08
Notes:     Kingbird was chasing RT Hawk far above the valley.  Juvenile birds included three Orioles in nest near dog park, one on perch along Ashland Creek.  Also juvenile Tree Swallows & Downy Woodpecker.
Number of species:     35

Wood Duck     4
California Quail     1
Great Blue Heron     1
Turkey Vulture     1
Osprey     1
Red-tailed Hawk     2
American Kestrel     1
Rock Pigeon     3
Mourning Dove     6
Anna’s Hummingbird     1
Acorn Woodpecker     1
Downy Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Western Wood-Pewee     3
Western Kingbird     1
Western Scrub-Jay     4
American Crow     1
Common Raven     2
Tree Swallow     12
Barn Swallow     30
Black-capped Chickadee     4
American Robin     2
European Starling     10
Yellow Warbler     1
Yellow-breasted Chat     2
Spotted Towhee     6
Song Sparrow     4
Black-headed Grosbeak     8
Red-winged Blackbird     20
Brewer’s Blackbird     16
Brown-headed Cowbird     4
Bullock’s Oriole     8
House Finch     3
Lesser Goldfinch     25
House Sparrow     6

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