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.

Slow week

Well, it sure has been a slow week in the yard. We have had almost no birds to speak of. We went from having 150-400 birds in the yard on any given day (just a week or so ago) to now having maybe 10-30 in the yard. It's very frustrating. All the feeders are clean and stocked with a variety of food but no one is coming to eat. Don't know what the cause is but we sure hope they come back soon.

As I write this, there are a few more birds in the yard than there were the last 2 days combined. It still is only about 30 birds but it's nice to see a slight increase. I'm sure some of it has to do with nesting but, geez, they still have to eat, don't they?

Anyway, after a week without birds in the yard, yesterday I decided to go to Laurelhurst Park (we also stopped by Westmoreland Park a few days ago) to find some birds. Alas, I didn't see one song bird (although I heard a couple of Song Sparrows). So I walked down to the pond hoping for some waterfowl. What I found was about 100 Gulls, 6 Mallards and 1 Hooded Merganser. Maybe it's me? I swear I take showers!

So here are some photos from the last week. Enjoy.

See, Crows aren't scavengers, they are recyclers!

How many Geese do you see?

Some of the aforementioned Gulls...

and more...

This poor Drake almost got taken out by this incoming Gull.

Eurasian Wigeon at Westmoreland Park

We think this was a Cackling Goose, he was a lot smaller than the Canadas standing nearby.

American Wigeon, also at Westmoreland Park

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!