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

A quick trip

We had an errand to run in Beaverton yesterday. We stopped at the duck pond just off of Murray and Scholls. We were only there for a few minutes but we were able to see Canada Goose, Mallards, Canvasbacks and Wigeons, both American and Eurasian! We hadn't been able to add any of these to this years list, so it was very exciting. This was our first attempt to identify waterfowl of any kind. We were able to identify some of them from our books and the photos we took but others weren't in any of the books nor could we find a good site online. If anyone has a link to a good site for identifying waterfowl, it would be greatly appreciated. Here are some of the photos from yesterday. What types do you see?


Then, on the drive back to Portland, we took the back roads and were able to spot an American Kestrel and at least 3 unidentified hawks. Not too bad for just running an errand.

Let us know what you think. Thanks and good birding.