The past week

Hello all. It's been another tremendously busy week. We are finally done remodeling the living room. Thank goodness! We haven't had a lot of time to go birding (or even watch the backyard) but we did make it up to Tualatin Hills Nature Park on Sunday for a few hours. Hoping against all hope that we might see a Pileated Woodpecker. We are fairly certain that we heard one, but he flew off before we could get there. ARG! Maybe next time. Still, it is a beautiful park.

So here are some photos of that trip as well as a few from the backyard. We wish you all good birding and a Happy St. Patrick's Day.

First, Tualatin Hills...

This was definitely the highlight of the day! Two deer standing about 15 feet away from us. They posed for a couple of pictures and then we left them alone.

Spotted Towhees everywhere. Gotta love those red eyes.

Lots of Downy Woodpeckers, too.

This is about as close to a Brown Creeper as we have ever been.

Male Red-Winged Blackbird

Female Red-Winged Blackbird

Now the backyard...

More of the color changing American Goldfinches.

The Northern Flicker is still getting the nest box ready. He spends quite a bit of time there now. He seems to be defending it well against the Starlings.


The Pine Siskins and Juncos seemed to have increased their numbers quite a bit. We thought that they were slowly dispersing, but they have come back with a vengeance and we are none too sad about it!