Calliope Hummingbird!

Here is a tiny little visitor that came to see us today! A Calliope Hummingbird!! Very exciting stuff. We don't get them too much in Portland, so it was a great surprise!!

Fernhill Wetlands

Michelle and I went out to Fernhill Wetlands yesterday morning for a few hours. It was a great day! We saw Warblers, Flycatchers, Wrens, water foul, Herons, Swallows, Finches, Sparrows...and Cedar Waxwings! It was amazing. The Cedars were flycatching with a flock of Yellow-Rumped Warblers, next to the trail leading around Dabblers Marsh. There was probably at least 40-50 Waxwings. Some of them even flew right past us, giving us our closest looks ever at these beautiful birds. We took at least 50 photos of the Waxwings alone!

We also got some great looks at Great Blue Herons. We saw at least 4 different herons. Hundreds of Tree Swallows were in the air and in the nest boxes. We also saw a Spotted Sandpiper on one of the little islands! We watched a gosling hatching (from about 300 ft away) through the binoculars. Again, what a great day. We have 3 or 4 unidentified birds right now. Once we ID them we will post about those, as well.

So here are some of the photos we took and we will post more soon. Thanks for stopping by and good birding!

A Song Sparrow atop the sign. We couldn't resist taking his photo.

Great Blue Heron stalking some fish.

After he caught the fish, he took off!

Here's another one that soared right past us! They are such graceful birds.

And here are the Cedar Waxwings!

Note the red line on the tail, just above the yellow. From what I understand, the red is probably caused by it's diet. Normally, the tip of the tail is only yellow.

Very majestic!

We were so excited to see them!

So glad that they are returning. We occasionally saw small flocks of them throughout the winter, but nothing like this!

A Red-Winged Blackbird

Tree Swallows were everywhere!

Spotted Sandpiper. A new Life List Bird!

Evening Grosbeak!!

We had our FOY (first of the year) Evening Grosbeak juts a few minutes ago! It was at a black oil sunflower feeder. It stayed there about 5 minutes, then a hawk swooped over the yard and it (along with everything else) was gone. But still, it was here!! WooHoo!

Jackson Bottom Wetlands

I went to Jackson Bottom yesterday for about 5 hours. What an awesome day to go! Yes, the weather was pretty bad, but there were birds everywhere! I saw at least 46 identified species and 3 unknowns. It was so much fun! Here are some of the photos. I hope you enjoy them.



Common Yellowthroat

Another Yellowthroat

A Great Egret

A Great Egret and a Great Blue Heron

Marsh Wren

Yellow-Rupmed Warbler

Cliff Swallow

Another Cliff Swallow

Belted Kingfisher

Cinnamon Teals

Northern Shovelers

Killdeer

Mourning Dove

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

Canada Geese and their goslings

Another gosling. So flippin' cute!

Bald Eagle

I saw 2 yesterday. Both adults.

Red-Tail Hawk

Marine Drive walk

I went for a walk yesterday from 148th and NE Marine Drive down to 122nd, then from122nd to Glisan and then home. It was a great walk and I saw about 30 species. I did add one new bird to the Yearly list - a Common Loon! Here are some photos from the walk.

Also, on Wednesday night, Michelle and I saw 3 Killdeer just off of 106th and NE Halsey, in a parking lot of a restaurant. We didn't have the camera with us so I'm going to try to get some photos of them this weekend.

Here's the photos. Enjoy.


Song Sparrow


A Savannah Sparrow. They were all over Marine Drive!


Another Savannah

A Robin enjoying a nice, refreshing bath.

He was really going to town!

A Lesser Goldfinch. Michelle took this photo and I really like how the light is reflecting off the water. It reminds me of a dream sequence in a movie.

A Mallard skimming the water

A Brewer's Blackbird building her nest.

Here's the Common Loon. He kept diving for fish and he would stay under water for such a long time. One time he stayed under so long that I was actually worried for his safety. Geez!

One of our regular Chestnut-Backed Chickadees.

Here's a lone Bushtit. Once, in early winter we had a flock of about 75 Bushtits in the yard. Now, we are lucky to see 4 together. At least they are still coming in, though.

A Bewick's Wren singing away!

Tualatin Hills and misc. photos

I went to Tualatin Hills Nature park yesterday and walked around for a couple of hours. Still chasing the ever elusive Pileated Woodpecker. Didn't find him. I really didn't see a whole lot. It was pretty yucky, drab weather but still a overall good day (what day isn't good when you are birding?). I did manage to get one photo of a bird that we can't identify. The picture is below.

So, here are some photos from yesterday and a few others thrown in.

I should note that we (Michelle and I) haven't quite moved into the 21st Century yet. We still have dial-up. We (hopefully) will be getting cable or DSL in the near future, but for now, it's only dial-up. The reason for me telling you this is so that you realize that we have to shrink these photos big time so that they can actually upload to the blog. As it is, it still takes forever. If we didn't, the process would time out and we would never be able to post pics. So, if there is ever a photo that you want to see the original of (i.e. for identification purposes) just let us know and we will send it via email instead. We realize that the detail is lost when we post to the blog.

Thanks for stopping by! Good Birding.



A female Red-Winged Blackbird. Most photos in birding books don't do them justice.


A Robin with some nesting material in her beak.



A White-Crowned Sparrow. I saw more of these guys than I ever have before.



Here is the unidentified bird I was talking about. It was a smaller one (5-7) inches. I had no point of reference, so I'm not exactly sure. It wasn't making any calls. I was there and then it was gone. It was in a marshy area just outside of Tualatin Hills Nature Park.



Tree Swallows getting ready to nest. There was a flock of at least 30 of them, just outside of the park, after the Beaverton Creek bridge.


Here's another shot of them.




An Osprey just relaxing of of Marine Drive.

The are such awesome birds!

A Female Mallard that swooped down right in front of me. It was pure luck that I got this photo.

Another one let me get really close. Pretty tame around there.

This is, I'm assuming her mate. The were sitting together.


Here is a nest that Michelle found right outside of her workplace, not but 2 feet from a parking space for the building. If you look close, you can see one egg in the center of the photo and another one near the top, also in the center. They weren't happy about me looking at it so I took one photo and got away quickly.