Spring Break sightings so far

I took my toddler to Laurelhurst Park for a stroll, and we had a lovely time at the duck pond. Frisky hooded mergansers were diving & resurfacing (check them out--such bizarro heads!), a couple of Canada geese hung out, and a single double-crested cormorant stood pretty stoically on the island, looking skyward among many mallards. I'd only ever seen cormorants in large groups. A red breasted sapsucker mewed in a great old fir. Laurelhurst is worth the drive from North Portland, and we had coffee at Stumptown after.

My neighborhood flicker

Just after I took this he (and it's a he--check the red mustache) dropped into the yard and hunted ants.

Old Bushtit nest

That Don showed me a couple of weeks ago near the science building.

Great hummingbird moment

I was lucky to see an Anna's hummingbird light on a bush a few feet away from me--the first time I've seen a male Anna's still and close up. The magenta plumage on his head was so vibrant, and it shimmered like a hologram. No wonder the Aztec revered them. In non-Clark news, I saw a bald eagle flying low & close at Kelly Point park & a Bewick's wren digging around in the undergrowth just off the path. Kelly Point, at the convergence of the Willamette & Columbia rivers & just off the I-5 near the Interstate bridge, is great for spotting raptors and waterfowl--riverfront and scrubby woods. A bunch of cormorants were hanging out on some posts sticking out of the surf. Tomorrow I'm hanging my "birds you might see at the feeders" display in the Clark daycare.

Rabbit season?

I'm pretty sure I saw a young rabbit outside Hanna today, unless it was a Manx rat that knew how to hop...

The beauty of bushtits

Though this sighting was not technically at Clark, it was pretty good. While I was planting gladiolus bulbs in my front yard today a cluster of seven bushtits attacked my suet feeder just eight or so feet away from me. I guess they decided I smelled enough like dirt not to constitute a threat. I've never been so close to them before. I love their big heads, and the subtle shading of grays in their plumage, and how cheerfully they collaborate in having at the suet. It was actually a pretty bird-social day of gardening. A very chipper European starling perched just above me on the utility wire and basically ran through the whole starling songbook. I know they're non-native, but you've got to love birds who enjoy one another's company so much. I know now these are the birds I watched when I moved here in 1996 as they slowly gathered in one tree, twittering, until their numbers swelled into the hundreds, and then all inexplicably silenced, then moved off in a cloud of wingbeats. Much as I wonder what I used to do with my time pre-Ramona, I now wonder how I could have missed so much avian activity before I picked up a bird book. Reviewed my copy of Birds of the Willamette Valley over post-gardening tea so I could recognize the yellow-rumped warbler if I come upon one.

This Week

The revelations were kind of minor, but sweet. I counted 25 goldfinches in the tree kittycorner from Hanna 101, and listened to their modest song. The cherry (I think) tree at the end of the sidewalk leading out of Foster went in a day from potential pink to kinetic pink. It bleeds into its neighbor, a tree that flowers an alarming yellow. I cozied up to the Turkish Fir, which is a brick house of a tree. It's practically square, and its needles fan out in a bottle-brush shape. My favorite thing this week was watching the goldfinshes dine: tiny birds digging with tiny motions to unseat & eat tiny seeds. And finding that I had learned the call of the Anna's hummingbird. It makes a sound like sucking your teeth, or water gurgling down a drain; I heard it & looked up outside the Humanities office to see the sharp beak of our friend poking from the top branches of a bare tree. I couldn't help but tell a random passerby to check the bird out. The gentleman replied, Well, I'm worried for him. It frosted at my house last night. Such community spirit!

Red-tailed News

After not seeing a Red-tail in campus trees since last Tuesday, I saw one in the tall Douglas-Fir near Pechanec last night around 5:30. I could not tell if it was our erstwhile friend, but it may have been. The upper back looked about right.
Goldfinch numbers are still pretty good, and Mew Gull flocks continue, more especially on the Hudson's Bay baseball diamond. Any other migrant action is a little slow at present, but the blooming of flowers and leaves has begun (does the birch leafing seem early?)

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more goldfinches

The red oak outside Foster has goldfinches galore. One has more color than any I have seen thus far this year.

Today's Bird Walk

A quick 15-minute walk revealed some inklings, some hints of what is to come as Spring approaches. A male Audubon's yellow-rumped warbler was in all his finery near the Science bird feeder, and the Slate-colored Junco there continues. I am fascinated as I learn about these small birds and the diversity of plumage in them. I have a Cassiar's Junco in my yard (google that if you want to learn something really new) and the bird here are campus is a much more typical Slate-color.

A Red-breasted Nuthatch was also actively feeding over by Science as was a flock of Bushtits. Golden-crowned Kinglets were in a tree near Frost, and a Flicker was near Scarpelli. Courtship behavior among House Sparrows was ongoing, and House Finches were also in song.