BirdCam photos

Here are a few shots from our BirdCam from yesterday. Hope everyone is having a great week!

We got lucky with this shot. We captured a male and female House Finch (in the center). Then we have a Song Sparrow hanging onto the brush pile fence (above the female House Finch) and then, if you look closely, you can see a portion of the face of a Golden-Crowned Sparrow (middle right-hand side)


This one is kind of blurry but we loved the House Finch showing off his red coloring!


I think I had the camera a little too close. The Steller's Jay never quite fit in the frame.


But he's still fun to look at.


A Junco (forefront) and 2 House Sparrows above him.

BirdCam Photos

Here are some recent photos from our BirdCam. We hope everyone had a great start to their New Year and we hope you enjoy the pics! We set the camera up on the ground in the very back part of the yard, by a bramble pile we have set up for the birds.

A White-Crowned Sparrow


Red-Shafted Northern Flicker


A Dark-Eyed Junco


Steller's Jay


A Yellow-Rumped Warbler


A Golden-Crowned Sparrow


A Song Sparrow


What're you lookin' at??

Steller's Jay

I had the rare opportunity to get pretty close to a Steller's Jay. Normally, these guys will shoot out of the yard the second we step in it. But this brave little guy decided to hang around for a few photos. Steller's are a daily occurrence in the yard, but since I have never taken any decent photos of them, I was just excited to post them. They are such gorgeous birds.

He is in a Pear tree, with a Quince growing in between.


He gave me all sorts of good looks at him (or her)


It's funny, years ago, before I was a birder I actually thought these were the males and that the Scrub-Jays were the females. Looking back, I can't believe that I ever thought that, but it seemed normal to me then.


Gotta love the eyebrows.

long, winter nights

Here are some more photos from last weekend. You can bet that we are going to take a buncha, buncha pics this weekend, especially if it snows!! It doesn't sound like it supposed to get above 32 degrees until Thursday or even possibly Friday. Brrrrrrrrrr.


A hungry Cooper's Hawk sitting on our back fence. The feeder sat between she and I, so I thought "what the heck" and took the pic. As soon as I stepped around the feeder to take more photos, she took off. They are much more skittish than the Sharp-Shinned Hawks.


A Northern Flicker deciding to eat some black-oil sunflower seed instead of his usual suet. Variety is good!


Lessers, Lessers everywhere. The Lesser Goldfinches have really increased their numbers lately. We'll see if they stick with us through this arctic blast we are getting!


The Scrub-Jays are really hitting the suet hard. Much higher fat content (not to mention that it's chock-full of nuts) makes for happy Jays!

This is what a Pine Siskin looks like when it's 35 degrees and windy. He stayed there, fluffed out, for a while then flew to a feeder. I kept an eye on him to make sure that he wasn't showing signs that he was sick. He didn't seem to be at all. Just a chilly, little Siskin.

The Steller's Jays are increasing in number, too. They are also getting pushier and not scaring off so easily. Good for them!

Such great patterns on their feathers!

Christmastime and the GBBC

Christmas is coming fast and with that comes the inaugural Seth and Michelle's "Drive Around for a Couple of Hours on Roads That We Don't Know and Look for a Christmas Tree Farm Day"!! WoooHoooo! Actually, we had a great time and we ended up only making 5 U-turns. We ended up at Zurbrugg Farms up on Germantown Rd. They were extremely warm and friendly and we found the perfect tree (with pics to come)! We use Christmas as reason #1,612 to spoil our pups!

Onto other matters....

The 12th annual Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up Feb. 13th-16th, 2009! This is another joint citizen science project by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Audubon Society! This is similar to Project FeederWatch, only the Great Backyard Bird Count lasts only 4 days. It's completely free and the only thing thing that the program asks of you is that you spend at least 15 minutes during one of those four days counting the birds in your backyard. But, you can count as long as you like! Let's see, 24 hours a day x 4 days = 96 total hours that you could count. Just think! But seriously, 15 minutes is all they ask over four days. Not too bad.

I could ramble on and on (which I have already done), but instead I'll post some links to different parts of the GBBC website and let you see for yourself. It really is a neat site to visit.

onto the photos...


At the Christmas tree farm we saw quite a few Juncos. This little guy sat and posed for a few minutes.

After getting our tree home (again, the PERFECT tree), our eldest dog Lilly stood underneath the tree and slowly walked around in circles.

Our only guess is that she likes the way the branches scratch her back. Whatever the reason, it's extremely funny to watch!

Look! We had a Cardinal in our living room!! Well, we can pretend can't we?

Here is the link to the home page of the GBBC http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ This is a great starting point and should answer most of your questions.

Follow this link http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/results and explore the results from previous years. You can do everything from an overall search to a very detailed report. Kinda fun!

Or you can visit http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/gallery and take a look at the participant's photo galleries from over the years. This is also great fun, especially to see how much better the photos have gotten over the last decade.

Here's the link for this one http://www.audubonportland.org/about/newsletter/dec08/at_download/file (Thanks to our friend Rural Chatter at http://ruralchatter.blogspot.com/ ) but it's an article about the Great Backyard Bird Count that is in the Dec/Jan edition of the (Portland, OR) Warbler. It is actually my first published article! It's not exactly going to win me The Pulitzer, but I was very excited that the Audubon included it in their newsletter. You can pick up the Warbler at many local bird stores or at the Portland Audubon Society. There is also an accompanying article about the Christmas Bird Count (starting later this month). If any one is interested in taking part of the Christmas Bird Count this year, please go here http://www.audubon.org/Bird/cbc/

Backyard happenings

Hello all! We hope everyone is having a great start to their week. Here are some photos and descriptions of the goings on in our backyard. Hope you enjoy!


The female Anna's is starting to get very chunky! We are sure that she has a couple of eggs in that tiny belly of hers. Very exciting!

The male Anna's continues to tell anyone who will listen, that this is HIS yard!

Starlings are telling anyone who will listen that THEY own every nest box in the yard. Here is one of them on the Flicker box. We have since filled it with wood shavings and the Starlings don't seem to care for it anymore.

The squirrels continue to eat everything in sight. We are done with trying to keep these little buggers out of the feeders.

We are starting to get more Jays in the yard and I am using them to desperately try to work on my birds in flight shots.

The Scrub Jays continue to take as much as possible (usually 3 peanuts).

The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet continues to make us laugh with his "googley eyes"!

The House Sparrows are checking out all of the nest boxes in the yard (we have 8). We were hoping for a Chickadee or Red-Breasted Nuthatch family but, we'll see.

This was the House Sparrows' nest last year. The house produced 5 broods! We know a lot of people don't care for the House Sparrows but they really are pretty and fun birds to watch.

The Northern Flicker is checking out the House Sparrows home, even though we put up a flicker house. That would be so cool to have a Flicker family in the yard!

The Cooper's (and Sharp-Shinned) continue to stop by the yard multiple times a day.

Yet another attempt to get one of these guys in flight. They move SO fast!

The Bushtits are still eating with their hands! What uncooth little guys they are (but, oh so cute)!

All as she would have to do is ask and we would give her a fork! Sheesh!

And the Townsend's Warbler continues to be one of the most beautiful and striking birds in the yard!

Good birding to all!

Photos from last week

First off, we would like to thank everyone who visits our blog! We hope you all enjoy the blog and the photos. If you could, please let us know you stopped by.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is over (you can still turn in your counts here http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/input until March 1st) and it looks like the best year for, not only Portland, but all of Oregon as well! Portland has turned in over 200 checklists, so far! That's the first time Portland has turned in over 200. Thanks to all those who counted.

Update on #92 (injured Pine Siskin) and #118 (injured Steller's Jay). I am sad to say that they have both passed away. We don't have all the details yet, but no matter what, it's still disheartening.

On to happier things. Here are some more of the pics we have taken over the last week. Again, we hope you enjoy and good birding!


American Robin and Varied Thrush

Steller's jay

Flickers in the fog at Mt. Tabor

Mourning Dove at Jackson Bottom

Male Wood Duck at Laurelhurst Park

Lesser Goldfinch

Dark-Eyed Junco

House Finch

Mallards at Jackson Bottom

Black-Capped Chickadee