It was raining pretty hard this afternoon as I drove out East Main past the middle school soccer fields.  Our of the corner of my eye I noticed a gray-fronted bird flutter down and land just inside the fence.  We addicted birders have these habitat checklists indelibly, unconsciously in mind.  Habitat: short, mown playing field.

Not one of the blackbirds, nor a Starling. Not white like the front of a Killdeer.  No yellow, so no meadowlark.  No orange or blue–not a Robin or Bluebird.  Wrong shape for a Mourning Dove, no visible white either.  All this was considered without my even having to deliberately review the short list of soccer field species.   I had already slammed on the brakes.  This being a secondary road in Oregon, there was no shoulder.  I pulled as close to the ditch as I could.  Turned on the blinker lights and  alighted.  Grabbed my camera and trudged back through the rain.

He was the only snipe I could find.  Otherwise there were a score of Killdeer running about the soggy field.  In the firmly held faith of the Wilson’s Snipe, he knew he was invisible.  Every good snipe knows that bipedal predators can’t see a snipe holding still in the grass.  Besides, the rain was so heavy it was nearly an opaque curtain, right?  So I got within a few feet of this guy behind the fence.  Here’s a picture that may explain why the snipe thought he was invisible:

If you can’t look him in the eye…

EMBARRASSMENT OF EMBERIZINES

Earlier this week at North Mountain Park annex there was a variety of Emberizines, that Sibley denotes as “sparrows and their allies.”  Spotted Towhee, Golden and White-crowned Sparrows, White-throated Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Song Sparrow and Juncos.  A good season and good place to be a seed-eater.

APART FROM THE CROWD

Over at Ashland Pond, the same crowd is crowded onto the water.  Dozens of Mallards, at least a hundred wigeon including the one green-headed Eurasian male.  And that single female Hooded Merganser.  The only diving duck among the dabblers. A carnivore amongst vegans.  Although all ducks eat small prey, the Hooded Merganser really thrives on the fish and small animals she catches underwater.  No muck sucking for her, no pond scum saladry, no bottoms-up slurping of the finer vegetation that floats just below the surface.  A nice shimmering minnow is called for, or perhaps a small frog.

Once this week I had an unusual Great Egret there, but he was flying over and didn’t even look down.  One young Blue Heron hunts here regularly.

EMIGRANT LAKE

A few miles past the snipe today I came to Emigrant Lake.  It had exactly the same rain that was falling in downtown Ashland.  Canada Geese, check.  Western Grebe, check.  Scrub-Jay, check.  Crows, yup.  Common Merganser, check.  Mallard, of course.  Pied-billed grebe, check.  And there was one lone female Bufflehead.  A small bird objectively, but afloat on the rain riveted lake surface she looked even tinier than usual.

GARDEN BIRDS

I may have seen the last of the Band-tailed Pigeons for this year.  Haven’t seen any in a week.  The two Wild Turkeys still come by regularly.  The juncos numbers are now over a dozen daily.  Lesser Goldfinches are down to a pair and they’re not around much.  No Siskins yet this year.  The one Mountain Chickadee still gets bullied by the smaller hoodies from the Black-capped gang.  Mourning Doves, first to arrive, last to retire at dusk.  Jays, of course.  And one or two Flickers every day.  This is a male, sometimes a female uses one of the feeders as well.  Theynever appear together in this seaons tough family groups are common in summer.

The Bushtits just crowd around and sample the suet feeder when they’re about.  They never linger.

White-breasted Nuthatch plays his horn, both before and after feeding.  The Spotted Towhees lurk in the shadows and a Song Sparrow has been around almost daily.  And there’s one male Anna’s Hummingbird.