Here’s a youtube video of a Snow Goose fly-out in New Mexico.  You can see the same thing at Sacramento Wildlife Refuge just off Exit 585 on Interstate 5 in Glenn County, CA. And there a small fraction of the geese will be the less abundant Ross’s.

The greatest fly-out I’ve ever seen was in Nebraska on a sub-freezxinf March morning along the Platte River when thousands of Sandhill Cranes bugle, shuffle about and then lift out in a swirling cloud of  cranes.  Here’s a video of a crane fly-out.  Here’s one of cranes moving about.  Here’s one of them on their roost island, uttering their ancient calls.  The cranes in Nebraska I believe to be the finest wildlife spectacle that survives in North America.

No surprise, the winters are warmer and many areas are now in slightly warmer zones requiring slightly less hardy plants.

A pamphlet from 1975 lists the birds of Jackson County.  It was published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  The booklet drew on all known records up to that point.  This was before any significant Christmas Bird Counts, long before Feederwatch or even an active Audubon chapter.  Not listed among the raptors: Red-shoudered Hawk and White-tailed Kite. So in the past forty-seven years those two species have expanded their range northward from California.  Both are largely lowland birds who eat small mammals.  It is possible their range expansion is tied to the milder winters as neither species is migratory in fall or winter.  Heavy snow would make their hunting impossible.

Again the breakfast serving was appreciated by a flock of seventeen birds.

One bird book by a renowned expert actually pretends you could confuse these birds with the TURKEY Vulture.  Huh?  After how many bottles of wine would that be? 

The bird’s Latin name is Meleagris gallopavo.  Meleagris is a Latin word for guinea fowl, a bare-headed bird known in Europe long before the Wild Turkey was discovered by Europeans when the penetrated the North American forests.  Gallo is chicken, pavo is peacock.  So here we have the guinea fowl-chicken-peacock bird.  In the early days the European explorers wanted the Anerican wildlife to be inferior copies of what they knew back home.  The wilderness they encountered must naturally be inferior to the Loire Valley or East Sussex, right?  Therefore, the people and animals were also inferior.  It was only after Romanticism spread across European intellectual circles that American animals could be admired, even celebrated by artists like John Gould.  It would have been better if they’d called the turkey “big brown acorn eater.”

Behold the tail, a subtle design in a pallette of dense and contrasting earth tones.  Nothing they sell in the Sundance catalog can compare with the designer clothing our turkeys wear for everyday.  And the toms, when they’re strutting their stuff…well, beyond the scope of any Paris fashion house.

Speaking of predators, I’m hearing a lot of red-shouldered hawk screams in our neighborhood right now. Last spring a pair may have nested uphill from our house.  But these screams are all phoney as they come from Steller’s Jays who think it’s great fun to scare the bejeezus out of little mammals.  Their imitation is about 85% believable and if you’re a furry little vole, you aren’t going to wait around to see if it really is a hawk.

The Screech-owl is on his pre-spring toot, calling from his hunting perch at night.

The Red-breasted Nuthatches are now showing up in a pair some days.

I learned from local ornithologist Barbara Massey that out Juncos are not “our” Juncos.  The dozens I see in my garden daily during the winter and not the same individuals I spot in the mountains at 4500′ in the spring.  Our local breeders head south and the valley is occupied each fall by transients from much further north.  Ms Massey is working on a book about the migration and dispersal of our local mountains birds which is extremely complex and in some cases, unstudied heretofore.  Where do our local Mountain Bluebirds go to each winter?

GREATER CHIHUAHUA HAWK

This alpha predator was back on her perch at the Ashland Dog Park this morning.  I noted that chihuahuas are extremely rare there now.  Seems to work at least as well as the classic tiger whistle.

The name “nuthatch” comes from an old English word “hatch” which meant same as “hack” for the way the bird hacks away at nuts to break off pieces small enough to eat.  The European nuthatches look much like the ones here in America.  Here are the Wild Turkeys at the breakfast counter, accompanied by the doe who knows the score.

The Screech-Owl was tooting across the street from our house one evening this week as the dog and I took our last walk of the day. And down by the Dog Park a Red-tail perched, waiting for a spare chihuahua?

And over at Ashland Pond, a Red-shouldered Hawk.

Up in LIthia Park, the Wood Ducks are in glorious feathers.  And take a look at our Lesser Goldfinches, they are also in full breeding colors already.

Click here to hear the NPR interview with the grounded pilot.

“The  melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,                                                                                                                                        Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sear.”                                                                                          –William Cullen Bryant.

Perhaps the poets of our temperate climes have given the northern annual winters a bad name.  At this season you get some of the best looks at the most enthralling birds. Sure, it was cold and drippy this morning.  Wind howled through bare branches above Ashland Pond.  The cold was cutting, abrasive. But the birds who weren’t hiding in their brushy redoubts, those birds were fine indeed.

See how the Red-shouldered Hawk had to lean into the wind to stay on his perch.  A passing raven was driven sideways by the wind so his headway was slowed considerably.  The only other airborne birds I saw were ducks navigating against the unseen river of air currents.  Then a Flicker was foiund feeding on a school lawn protected from the wind by nearby hedges.  His patch of grass and his feathers were unruffled.      And in our protected garden where wind almost never ventures, the small birds fussed and fed.

The cold wind kept small birds huddled invisibly inside masses of foliage and branches at more windswept locations.  The winter air capable of desiccating those life-sustaining calories like sun dries a damp sidewalk.

243 Granite Street, Ashland, Jackson, US-OR Jan 22, 2012 7:45 AM 10 species

Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)  6. Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)  1. Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus)  1. Steller’s Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri)  4. Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)  3. Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus)  30. Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis)  1. American Robin (Turdus migratorius)  1. European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)  4. Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)  30.

Ashland Pond, Jackson, US-OR Jan 22, 2012 9:45 AM. 11 species

Wood Duck (Aix sponsa)  4. American Wigeon (Anas americana)  1. Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)  12. Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus)  3. Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)  1. Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus)  1 American Coot (Fulica americana)  3. Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon)  1. Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus)  2. Common Raven (Corvus corax)  1. Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)  3.