Ms. Ryder's First Grade Class

Michelle and I were invited to speak at Willamette Primary by Ms. Ryder and her first grade class. She wanted us to speak to her class about bird watching and feeding. They have been learning about birds this whole year and have had a couple of field trips and even a visit from the Portland Audubon Society.

We have never considered ourselves teachers (we still have a lot to learn!) but we looked forward to the opportunity to talk about birds. We were greeted by Ms. Ryder and her class and we were so happy to see the excitement in their faces! They immediately started asking questions about birds and looking at the different bird feeders and food we brought for the presentation. We also noticed outside of their classroom about 8 different bird feeders hanging nearby. They also had quite a few bird nests, eggs, and other bird related items in their classroom! It was so fun to see all of these young minds so inquisitive about birding. We did 2 presentations (one for Ms. Ryder's class and one for Ms. Lana's class). We heard some great bird stories and were surprised by the level of knowledge these first graders displayed! These young boys and girls will be outbirding us in no time at all!

We had a wonderful time and we can't thank Ms. Ryder enough for inviting us! Thank you to all of the kids, in both classes, for such great questions and for making us feel so welcome! Keep up the good work!

Merlin and Flicker

Looking through our photos that we took of the Merlin in our neighborhood 2 days ago, we discovered that a Northern Flicker was flying by at one point. We thought it was kind of a cool photo.

Merlin

We just saw a Merlin in NE Portland! This is the first time that we have seen this bird in our part of town. What a great treat!

Ridgefield

Michelle and I went on our annual New Year's Day birding trip. This time (as usual) we went to Ridgefield NWR. It was a bone chilling day but skies were mostly clear and there was some great birding going on. We have never seen so many Red-Tailed Hawks, Northern Harriers, Blue Herons, or Bald Eagles all at the same time. They were everywhere.

We also added a bird to our Life List! A Black Phoebe! It's a rare bird for Ridgefield and we felt very lucky to have seen it! Here are some other photos from the trip. We hope you enjoy!

We identified 39 species. Species list is at the end of the post. Great start to the New Year!

One of the many Red-Tailed Hawks we saw during the trip.


Tundra Swans resting on the icy ponds.


The Blue Herons were as thick as fog. We found several of the just standing in the road not seeming to have a care in the world!


They all seemed quite willing to pose for some photos.



We came upon this Heron just as it nailed the ground with fury. He then pulled out a Vole (we think anyway).

He made quick work of the rodent.

A couple of seconds later and down it went!

Here is the Black Phoebe! At first, we thought it was a Slate-Colored Junco, but after watching it for a few minutes through the bins and hearing it's very distinctive call, we determined that it was in fact a Black Phoebe.

5 juvenile Bald Eagles surveying the land for their next meal.

A smattering of Tundra Swans with hundreds and hundreds of Northern Pintail.

Here are 2 photos of an unidentified Hawk. It was slightly larger than a Kestrel. It's wings seemed to be rounded in flight. We only got this one back shot before it took off. We didn't recognize the pattern on the back.

Here is a blown up version. The tip of it's beak seems to be light colored (yellow?). Any ideas?

Species:

Canada Goose

Cackling Goose

Tundra Swan

Wood Duck

Mallard

Shoveler

Pintail

Ring-Necked Duck

Greater Scaup

Bufflehead

Ruddy Duck

Pied-Billed Grebe

Cormorant

Blue Heron

Bald Eagle

Northern Harrier

Red-Tailed Hawk

Kestrel

Coot

Red-Breasted Sapsucker

Downy Woodpecker

Flicker

Black Phoebe

Steller's Jay

Scrub Jay

Crow

Black-Capped Chickadee

White-Breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

Marsh Wren

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

Robin

Starling

Spotted Towhee

Song Sparrow

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

House Finch

Lesser Goldfinch

House Sparrow

New York City Birding

Michelle and I went to New York for 3 days last week. We were pretty busy but we did get to spend about 9 hours birding in Central Park. It was incredible! If you have never birded Central Park before, you should definitely plan to do so. We saw dozen of species and about half a dozen Life List birds! We also were lucky enough to see Pale Male (the Red-Tailed Hawk) and then Zelda (the wild Turkey) in Battery Park.

Here are just some of the photos we took in no particular order. Let us know if you enjoy these! Have a great day and good birding!

A Blue Jay (a life lister for us).


Another Blue Jay posing for us! The fall colors were incredible.

A Common Yellowthroat in the middle of NYC. This photo was actually taken on our way to Central Park. This little bird was in a small shrubby area in a huge plaza.

Another Common Yellowthroat in Central Park. They were everywhere!

A beautiful male Cardinal! Another lifer for us!

Here is his gorgeous female counterpart. It was so cool to see these birds!

Another male Cardinal. Just stunning birds.

Another female Cardinal that let us get pretty close.

An Eastern Phoebe, yet another life lister!

A Golden-Crowned Kinglet grabbing some lunch.

A Hermit Thrush. These guys were everywhere, too.

And here he is...Pale Male! If you haven't heard about this most famous of Hawks, you should definitely read about him. It's a wonderful story!

A Peregrine Falcon flying over us while we were walking down 5th Ave. We saw a few Peregrines during our trip.

A Red-Breasted Nuthatch trying to find a place to hide his pine nut.

This is a terrible photo, but it's the only one we got of a juvenile Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker! A life lister for sure! This is the only one we saw during our excursion.

Here is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. We saw a few of them and yet another added to our life list!

A row of House Sparrows on a fence in the park. We have never seen so many House Sparrows as we did in NYC.

A Red-Tailed Hawk sitting right above a woman who did not know it was there.

Another Red-Tailed Hawk in the park. We just thought this would make a great photo.

A juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk cleaning his beak after finishing off a squirrel.

Here is the same juvenile Red-Tailed sitting on top of the aforementioned squirrel.

He let us get pretty close. He wasn't going to let anyone take away his lunch!

Here he is in another tree. We guess when a bird lives in NYC it gets pretty used to people everywhere.

Another Golden-Crowned Kinglet eating some berries.

A Ruby-Crowned Kinglet showing his beautiful plumage.

Another Ruby-Crowned Kinglet in Central Park.

A flock of Ruddy Ducks and the skyline.

A Song Sparrow sitting pretty.

A Tufted Titmouse! A life lister that we were really hoping to find! Such cute little guys!

A White-Breasted Nuthatch digging for bugs. We rarely see them in Portland but they were all over Central Park.

A Winter Wren coming out of its hidey-hole.

Another Winter Wren just off one of the paths through the park.

And here is Zelda, the wild Turkey that lives in Battery Park. We hadn't heard of Zelda before our trip so you can imagine our surprise when we came across her!