Towheeblog

PEANUT GALLERY

atowhee — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:31:10 +0000

WINTER BIRDING

atowhee — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:11:38 +0000

There are still a couple slots open in the winter birding class I am doing on Feb.2 and 4. Evening lecture on Thursday, field trip Saturday. It’s sponsored by the Ashland Park and Rec Department and class will be at North Mountain Nature Center. The cost is $15 and the field trip will happen regardless of weather.

The class in early March on birding Klamath is almost full so don’t wait, if you’re interested in that one. It includes a full day in Klamath Basin.

DUCKY DAY

atowhee — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:18:52 +0000

Best bird of the morning was an Orange-crowned Warbler in the willows just at the end of Glendower where you walk down to Ashland Pond. This species is an uncommon wintering bird this far north. But the highlight was the variety of ducks on the little pond. First: quintet of Hooded Mergansers, females with the rusty heads and no white showing. Then a cluster of Ring-necked Ducks, male with pale sidewall. Also, at end of sequence, a male Wigeon with his pale blue beak.

Isn’t there an old folk saying, “let sleeping grebes lie?” Well, actually, they sort of float about in the pond weeds.

Ashland Pond, Jackson, US-OR Jan 28, 2012 9:45 AM. 28 species. temp around freezing, some ice on the pond, but mostly open water. Almost 3 drozen waterbirds on the pond, a high number for any season.

Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) 22, ALL FLY OVERS. American Wigeon (Anas americana) 4. Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) 4. Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris) 5. Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola) 5. Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) 8. Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) 4. Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) 2, COURTING PAIR IN AIR. American Coot (Fulica americana) 5 .Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) 1. Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) 4. Western Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica) 5. Common Raven (Corvus corax) 3. Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) 2. Bewick’s Wren (Thryomanes bewickii) 1 SINGING. American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 2. European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) 12. Orange-crowned Warbler (Oreothlypis celata) 1. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) 1. Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus) 2. White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) 1. Golden-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla) 15. Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) 1 Brewer’s Blackbird (Euphagus cyanocephalus) 1 Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus) 7 Pine Siskin (Spinus pinus) 3. Lesser Goldfinch (Spinus psaltria) 15. House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) 10. Below: two Red-tail soaring pics, they are circling in courtship pairs right now. Nesting commences soon. Then a Purple Finch, lastly American Robin watching me over his shoulder.

BEYOND KITES

atowhee — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:31:29 +0000

I went kiting a second time this week. The slender, pale birds are so alluring, so sympatico, so…kitely. Just look at this pair in an oak, resting together between voling runs.

But there’ve been plenty of other interesting birds. And for a few suynny moments this afternoon, the lower box Screech-owl was in full sun. A nocturnal owl out of the shadows, a shot I couldn’t pass up.

Earlier I wrote about the Lesser Goldfinches being in near-breeding pluamge. Check out this bright male:

And Red-tailed Hawks and Downy Woodpeckers round out our gallery.

A FLY OUT

atowhee — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:17:53 +0000

In the birding world a morning fly-out, or an evening fly-in, can be a thrilling sight. The Winter Wings Bird Festival at Klamath Falls every February features pre-dawn trips to a dead-end road where you can see numerous Bald Eazgles fly out from their communal overnight roost. And this morning I got to watch a smaller, but wonderful, fly-out right in front of my house. Let’s call it the Ashland Fly-out. Our local Wild Turkeys roost overnight in the tall trees of Lithia Park along Granite Street. Mostly thery roost in Douglas-fir. And I tried to get shots of the big guys flying out, one-by-one, chirping and squawking as they took wing from forty feet up.

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.

OFFICIAL MAP SHOWS WARMING

atowhee — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:24:07 +0000

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (DOA) has just issued a new map showing the planting zones for horticulture and farming. It’s the first update in twenty years and shows the effects of global warming. The DOA was stopped from issuing an update back in 2003 when the Cheney-Bush Admin tried to stop release of any data confirming global warming. Now that federal science is under less political pressure to comply with a particular pro-business slant, the new maps have come out.

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

OWL

atowhee — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:41:23 +0000

At the lower Granite Street owl box near Nutley (click on pic for full screen):

FLYING (of) A KITE

atowhee — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:57:05 +0000

The White-tailed Kite is usually seen in pairs. Adults hunt together year round, unlike most American raptors. The Kite is a vole specialist along the Pacific Coast, hewing to grasslands where the small mammals are most prevalent, most easily seen and caught. The bird is slender and elegant, quick and pale. Only the male Harrier comes as close to being a white bird among American raptors. Most American hawks lack the subtle but eye-catching design elements of the kite. Our Red-shouldered Hawks in the west are more brightly colored. But among U.S. raptors only a Swallow-tailed Kite or an Osprey, carrying a fish torpedo-like beneath its fuselage, can compare our local kite. This pair was hunting along Butler creek Road east of I-5 near Ashland…in grassy pastureland.

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.

TURKEY TRUTHS

atowhee — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:50:10 +0000

Behold the Wild Turkey, much admired by Benjamin Franklin for its fortitude and family values.

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.

BIRD NOTES ON BIRDS OF NOTE

atowhee — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:37:23 +0000

One day this week the jays did NOT show up for the morning peanut hunt. They were largely absent from our garden all that day. The peanuts remained untouched, even the squirrels wouldn’t come onto the porch The next day: normal peanut frenzy. My conclusion was that some predator, raptor or owl, had taken one of the local jays overnight and they needed a day to settle their nerves. This jay-disappearance has happened before and it’s not seasonal nor seem to be weather related.

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.