A few photos

Here are a few photos of some regular residents in our yard. Hope you enjoy them!

An Oregon Junco deciding which sunflower seed looks the best. We are getting about 20-25 juncos a day now. In winter, we usually have around a 100 or so in the yard at any given time.


One of the many Flickers we get in the yard.


We had 5 in the yard at the same time yesterday. Last winter, we had nine at once! Yes, we go through lots o' suet.


A Black-Capped Chickadee that was nice enough to pose for a couple of photos.

They usually don't hold still long enough for me to get the shot.

Commonwelath Park and the yard

Today, Michelle and I went out to Commonwealth Park in Beaverton. It was just supposed to be a quick stop, but we ended up being there for quite a while.

Among the variety of birds, were a juvenile Green Heron (who let us get really close) and a Horned Grebe!

So here are some photos from the trip and a few others from the yard.
Good birding to all.


Here is the gorgeous juvenile Green Heron! He has been one of the most elusive birds for us. We catch quick glimpses, but we have never been able to stare at him.


Here he is staring right back at us!


Such a cool looking bird!


Please don't ask how many photos we actually took of this little guy.

Photo 9,215...

Showing off a bit for the camera.

I can't tell you how excited we were to finally find this bird!

A Horned Grebe. We've never found one at Commonwealth Lake before.

A Green-Winged Teal.

A beautiful American Wigeon.

An odd looking American Wigeon among some Mallards.

Here is the odd looking Wigeon out in the lake.

A female Wood Duck.

Some Steller's Jays filling up in the backyard.

A female Purple Finch.

A (blurry) Red-Breasted Sapsucker on the telephone pole in the backyard (yes really, in the backyard).

A first of season Yellow-Rumped Warbler (Audubon's).

More photos from the yard

Here are a few photos from the last week or so. The Band-Tailed Pigeons are still hanging around. The most we counted at one time was 7! It was awesome to see so many at once.

The American Goldfinches are slowly starting to return, but they have lost most of their summer colors and are now the more muted yellows. They will winter with us by the hundreds.

Of note, this last week we saw, not only the Common Nighthawk (see post below this one) but a Pacific-Slope Flycatcher also stopped by! That's only the second Flycatcher we have ever had in the yard.

So, without further adieu, here are a few pics...

We have really enjoyed playing host to these Band-tailed Pigeons.


They are great fun to have around.


They are usually resting atop this telephone pole/wire in the mornings. This pole, strangely enough, is actually in our backyard. Here you can see 5 of them.


Here are four of them in one of our homemade fly-thrus.

One of the more colorful American Goldfinches stopping in for a quick drink. Once they get their bright yellow summer colors we usually don't see them again until the start of fall when their colors are a little more drab.

A female Bushtit. They are coming in the yard 20 or 30 times a day now.

A Lesser Goldfinch snacking on a sunflower leaf.

The Lessers decimate our sunflowers leaves during the summer. They seem to enjoy the leaves as much as they do nyjer seed.

A very friendly House Finch taking a sip.

Common Nighthawk!

We just had a Common Nighthawk circling above the house! This is a life list bird for us and we certainly never expected to see one here. Here are a couple of (really) bad photos we just took.

A long time coming...

Hello to everyone and thanks for being so patient with us. We took a little blogging hiatus for the last few weeks, but we are back and ready to start blogging like crazy.

Here is a collection of photos from the last month or so, and please forgive us, they are not in any real order.

We hope you enjoy the photos and we will be posting more later this week. Take care and good birding!


An Osprey flying right over us at Ridgefield NWR.


A Flicker defending his suet from a Starling.


A juvenile Flicker camping out on a feeder. She wasn't quite sure how to hang on the side.


This photo is of a Cooper's Hawk in our yard. He flew in, and because of the shade, only his eye was really visible. It stood out like a bright, red berry.


We have had a pair of Band-Tailed Pigeons hanging out in the yard over the last couple of weeks!

They seem pretty friendly. They are a little jumpy, but if we sit still, they will hang out for a while.

One of them grabbing a drink.

A juvenile Steller's Jay learning to get 3 peanuts into his throat, just like he's seen the adults do.

A fledgling House Sparrow. Too young to fly, it just sat in this tree in our backyard while the male pitched a fit about us being too close.

A young Pied-Billed Grebe at Ridgefield NWR.

Some fledgling Cedar Waxwings at Salish Ponds.

These were taken a few weeks ago.

The might have been the cutest things ever!

While in the backyard a week or so ago, we were lucky enough to get a couple of photos of a very young Spotted Towhee!

The Black-Headed Grosbeaks have been hanging out in the yard the last few weeks.

Another Black-Headed Grosbeak stopping in for some dinner.

This Black-Headed Grosbeak was snacking on some berries.

We have had quite a bit of Hummingbird activity the last couple of weeks. At least five different birds, both Anna's and Rufous have been enjoying the bird bath. Here is a Rufous taking a bath.

They are such cute little creatures it is hard not to take dozens of photos each time!!

This Anna's Hummingbird has an unusual white spot on the top of it's head.

Another shot of the Anna's Hummingbird with the white patch on it's head.

An Anna's Hummingbird defending it's perch against a Rufous Hummingbird.

A quite moment at the feeder for the Rufous Hummingbird.

We have been loving all the different Juvenile birds coming to the yard lately. This Scrub Jay has learned where to find peanuts!!

He still hasn't quite mastered shelling peanuts yet. He kept dropping them through the bench and having to get another one.

The Red-Breasted Nuthatch with a black oil sunflower in our Mountain Ash tree.

All of the remaining photos were taken at Ridgefield NWR.

This juvenile Black-Crowned Night Heron posed quite nicely for us right off the the auto route trail!!

What a sight!!

He watched us watching him holding very still.

A rare site for us this time of year. A Blue-Winged Teal at Ridgefield NWR.

The Blue-Winged Teal being followed by some Juvenile Coots.

A Belted Kingfisher sat quietly for a time allowing for some great shots!!

A female Common Yellowthroat.

A Mourning Dove enjoying the day.

An Olive-Sided Flycatcher at Ridgefield NWR.

Another Flycatcher at Ridgefield. This one is a Willow.

As we were leaving Ridgefield NWR we saw a large flock of unidentified birds. Any clue to what they could be??

A closeup of the same flock.

Some waterfowl off in the distance. Any clue what they might be?

This Red-Tailed Hawk was chasing dinner on the ground.

We couldn't tell what dinner was supposed to be but the Red-Tailed Hawk was determined to catch it!

A week in the yard

Here are a few pics from our yard in the last 10 days or so. Hope you enjoy them and we hope everyone is having a wonderful Summer!

This is one of the resident Anna's Hummingbirds that we are lucky enough to host in the yard. She is pretty tame and sits for lots of photos.


We caught her doing this the other day and we have since seen it multiple times. She just sits there, and every once in a while, she would open her bill, and then snap it shut. Could she be flycatching? It wasn't hot, so I don't think she was panting. Any ideas?


Here she is doing it again. We have tried to find some info on it, but nothing so far has described what she's doing.


Such a gorgeous bird!

Here is a female Rufous Hummingbird. She flew to this feeder as I was standing next to it, photographing a Downy Woodpecker.

Here's the Downy on it's favorite suet feeder.

He also lets me get pretty close. Such cool looking birds.

Such a cute little face!

As I was photographing the Downy (above), this Cooper's swooped into the yard. The only bird to not get out of the yard was the Downy I was taking pics of. He stayed on the suet feeder, frozen stiff. Poor guy.

I backed away from the Downy so as not to scare him out of the tree and into the hawk's view. As I backed away, the Cooper's flew into the tree I was under and about 5 feet from the Downy. If you look close, you can see the Downy of the right side and in the middle is the Cooper's tail. Fortunately, the hawk flew off and the Downy lived to see another day.

2 of the many newly-fledged Scrub-Jays coming into the yard. Notice the all gray heads.

Another one of the fledglings. Very cute and fluffy.

Here is a newly-fledged Robin. There are young ones all over the yard. Jays, Robins, Sparrows, Chickadees, Cowbirds, Cooper's Hawks. It's a great time to be bird watching!

A Black-Capped Chickadee grabbing a snack.

Here are 8 abandoned (we think) Chickadee eggs. The nest box is on the side of the house and we watched them build it for weeks. Then, they just stopped coming to it. So we took it down, thinking we would just find an empty nest and this is what we found! So the box went immediately back up, but we still haven't seen the Chickadee pair going to it. Why would they abandon an entire nest?

Oregon Coast Trip

Michelle and I went to the coast for a few days for her birthday. We stayed in Cannon Beach with Haystack Rock just outside of our room. It was an incredible trip and we nabbed quite a few new Life List birds.

We were lucky enough to have some of the lowest tides of the year during our stay. The tide was so low, that we could walk behind Haystack Rock.

The trip was capped off with an amazing sight. We stopped at Fort Stevens, parking lot C, and were treated to 10,000+ Brown Pelicans and 1000's more Brandt's Cormorants. It was phenomenal!! I wish the pictures we took could convey what we saw. It was the most incredible sight. Huge flocks of Pelicans flying in and out and 1000's just sitting on the beach.

We hope you enjoy these photos and, hopefully, we won't wait so long in between postings. Take care and good birding!


A Greater Yellowlegs at the north end of the Necanicum Estuary


We found this Turkey Vulture in the woods here, partaking in some squirrel dinner. It was odd to see the Vulture in the forest.


See the hole? Now look to the right and you can see a Chestnut-Backed Chickadee getting ready to fly into it with some food in its' bill.


On the south side of Necanicum Bay, there were tons of Wilson's Warblers chasing each other through the woods.


We tried to ID this guy we found at Seaside Cove but we couldn't come up with an answer. Any ideas?

We found a couple hundred Brown Pelicans at Seaside Cove. It was awesome.

This is a photo of tons of Heerman's Gulls at Seaside Cove. There are a few other gulls thrown in, but the majority is the Heerman's. Life List for us!

A Pelican eating a fish. See it in his pouch?

The gull in the center is the Heerman's.

Pelicans everywhere!

Hundreds more Pelicans at Ecola State Park. There are also Cormorants, Murres, and Gillemots, too.

More of the same!

And still more!

We have never been so close to harlequin Ducks before. We found these at the base of Haystack Rock. They are such incredible looking birds!

2 Western Gulls with Starfish in their mouths! The extremely low tide made prime dining for the gulls.

A nesting Western Gull on Haystack Rock.

A shot of Haystack Rock with Pelicans flying along the sea.

See all the birds in the air? This is what happens when a Bald Eagle swoops in on the Rock.

Here goes the Eagle after successfully nabbing a Common Murre. He few right over our heads with it in his talons.

A Western Gull and one of the millions of Starfish in the rocks in Cannon Beach.

Two more Bald Eagles sitting behind Haystack Rock.

Nesting Tufted Puffins!! They are such cool birds!

3 more Puffins. Their colors were so striking.

During a small rain storm, the rocks in Cannon Beach looked gorgeous. There are 2 Bald Eagles sitting atop the rock in the back.

Haystack Rock without any water surrounding it. It was a very odd sight, but a great birding opportunity.

This Common Murre was kind enough to land close to us.

Nesting pelagic Cormorants. We saw 100's of nests all along the coastline.

A Western Gull and a Black Oystercatcher. Great looking birds!

Another Oystercatcher. It's amazing, with those bright red eyes and bill, how hard the are to see sometimes.

In Tillamook, there is a place called the Blue Heron Cheese Company. It's a great shop and we always stop in when we are in town (try their smokey garlic mustard!). This time, as we were walking in, we spotted this nest just above the front door.

As we got closer, we realized that it was a nesting Barn Swallow. She didn't care at all about the people walking in and out of the store. She just sat there, presumably on eggs.

Inside this circle is 3 juvenile Peregrine Falcons! This is at Cape Meares. The volunteers had a couple of scopes set up for people to look through. It was a great sight and one that we won't soon forget.

More nesting Pelagic Cormorants at Cape Meares.

This photo is of lots of Marbled Murrelets and 1000's of Common Murres. We couldn't fit all the birds into a single photo. We tried many times with no luck.

A singing White-Crowned Sparrow. The sparrows were all up and down the coastline.

A bunny at Cape Meares.

Just off of the parking lot at Cape Meares, we were treated to a couple of newly fledged Chestnut-Backed Chickadees! Notice the yellow still on the bill. This little one couldn't have been out of the nest for too long.

3 Black Oystercatchers in Depot Bay.

A Harbor Seal looking for fish in Depot Bay's harbor.

A Whimbrel in Newport. We only saw a couple of shorebirds on our trip.

An anemone in the tide pools back at Cannon Beach.

One of the smaller rocks behind Haystack Rock. The Pelicans and Cormorants loved to sun themselves here.

A Pelagic Cormorant in fight.

This is a side-view photo of Haystack Rock. Because of the low tides, we got further out and close to Haystack Rock than we ever have been able to before.

In the parking lot of our hotel, Barn Swallows were busy gathering nesting material.

Here is one of the views from the viewing platform from parking lot C in Fort Stevens. The coast was lined with Brown Pelicans. There were thousands more just off the shoreline and 1000's more in the air.

We don't know exactly how many there were, but everyone agreed that there were at least 10,000 Pelicans.

The Pelicans were flying right over our heads on the platform.

They are such amazing creatures. It was breathtaking to see so many at once.

1000's and 1000's of Pelicans.

Like we said earlier, the pictures cannot convey the enormity of the sight.

There were lots of Caspian Terns at Fort Stevens, as well.

A view from our car as hundreds of Pelicans fly past the platform and jetty at parking lot C.

A 3rd yr. Bald Eagle surveying the situation in Astoria. He was waiting for the gulls to get some food and he would then chase them and make them drop it, then he would go retrieve the food and eat it himself. Pretty smart if you ask me.