2018 OFF TO A BEAUTIFUL START

A garden surprise, a count week bird (McMinnville’s count is tomorrow), a beauty and a bird who likes to pose.  It seems like a good omen for 2018…we can only hope.

We’ve had an Audubon’s Warbler in our garden repeatedly every day for a few weeks.  Today he got some competition that he tried to drive off.  As I was looking out the window in the early afternoon, this blaze of color flew into view by our feeders.A thousand cranes bugling and soaring like small planes…or a bright male Townsend’s Warbler nonchalantly feeding in your garden twenty feet away?  Two days into the year and birding has provided both…and no rain predicted for our CBC tomorrow.  I’m liking 2018 so far, bird-wise.

This warbler is the 65 species I’ve recorded in my garden, or above it in the sky.  Other one-timers include Mourning Dove, Band-tailed Pigeon, Glaucous-winged Gull, House Wren, Hermit Thrush, Merlin, Sharp-shinned and Red-shouldered Hawks, Kingfisher.  Some birds I don’t ever expect here–despite their abundance in the area: Killdeer, Great Blue Heron (unless one flies over), Harrier, Savannah Sparrow, Pacific Wren, Rufous Hummingbird, Red-winged Blackbird.  I am surprised there has not been a single Golden-crowned Kinglet as I find them occasionally in winter not far off.

820 NW 19th Street, McMinnville, Yamhill, Oregon, US
Jan 2, 2018. 15 species

Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)  X
California Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica)  1
Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)  X
Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens)  X
Bushtit (Pacific) (Psaltriparus minimus [minimus Group])  25
Bewick’s Wren (Thryomanes bewickii)  1
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)  X
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) (Setophaga coronata auduboni)  1
Townsend’s Warbler (Setophaga townsendi)  1–adult male
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) (Junco hyemalis [oreganus Group])  20
Golden-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla)  3
Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus)  2
House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus)  2
Pine Siskin (Spinus pinus)  5
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)  X