This year’s crop of Band-tailed Pigeons have already formd those teenage gaggles so common among varous species. Here a gang of them are all on our feeder at one time. It is so borrrrring to hang out with those older, white-neck-stripe types who are always fussing about nests, and egg-laying and Ravens and such. These guys, true “teens,are focused on what matters most: eating.
In this group I spot one adult with a white neck stripe. The rest were all born earlier this year and won’t “earn” their stripes until autumn molt.
OTHER GARDEN BIRDS THIS WEEK
This is generally not the time of year for avian surprises, though one birder in Roseburg has taken recent pics of a Northern Cardinal in his backyard. Way out of range. And one birder called me to report a Wood Stork feeding in an irrigated field just outside Ashland. Just been looking for that one. There’s also the recent report from a California birder (we all know what those are like) who reported Blue Grosbeaks on Mount Ashland–also a bit northerly for those. I failed to relocate them earlier this week. No reports of Ivory-billed Woodpecker here, nor Bachman’s Warbler. If stork or Blue Grosbeak do show up I’ll be very happy to add them to my Oregon list, and try to get a photo for evidence. Letcha know.
Black-capped Chickadee. Year-round stalker of sunflower, one seed per beakful.
Black-headed Grosbeak female. Breeding bird who winters in tropics. Also an afficionado of sunflowers and other meaty nuts and seeds.
Young Steller’s Jay giving me the stare. Making sure the seed is firmly held between upper and lower mandible in case I were to make a mad charge at his feeder. This youngster has already learned to scream at me for food when the platform is emptied by the pork-bellied Band-tails who who clear it out in one minute flat, or rather one minute FAT.
Ashland City Band in concert. Not the range of a Mockingbird, nor the subtlety of a Swainson’s Thrush. Lacks the full-throated vigor of a Marsh Wren and creativity of the Sage Thrasher, but for a bunch of featherless bipeds with the limited audio range of all humans, they do a pretty nice job. Never up in time for the morning chorus. Usually heard only in the evenings in park-like habitats or occasionally on parade.
