A long time coming

We haven't posted in quite a while but here are a few photos from the last couple of months. Recently, and for the first time in our yard, we have had Western Screech-Owls and Eurasian Collared Doves! We are very excited to have these two new additions to the yard!

2 Western Screech-Owls in our Mountain Ash!

Another shot of the owls.

A Juvenile Band-Tailed Pigeon. You can tell it's a juvenile by the lack of a white collar around the back of the neck.

The Eurasian Collared Doves have been daily visitors for weeks now. It's great to see them and a first for our yard!

More Eurasian Collared Dove pics.

During the really hot weather (near 100 degrees) the doves would lay out on the tray and spread their wings. We assume that they were tryng to cool off.

The first photo we ever got of the Eurasian Collared Dove in a neighbors tree.

A juvenile Black-Capped Chickadee. We, luckily, have many nesting in our area.

A Red-shafted/Yellow-shafted Flicker. You can tell that it's a hybrid by the red coloration on the back of the neck.

A Red-Tailed Hawk on our street. It seems to be carrying a juvenile crow.

A Sharp-shinned Hawk on our fence. It was hot and he seemed to be trying to cool down a bit.

Another photo of him.

Such a gorgeous bird!

More shots of the Western Screech-Owl.

He landed on one of our bird houses in the backyard. It is so cool to see them so close to us.

A very curious owl.

They come to the yard, every night, between 9:30pm and 9:45 pm. They definitely own a clock or a very small wrist watch.

Lincoln's Sparrow!

This morning we found a Lincoln's Sparrow in the backyard! We have only had this visitor once before and that was when there was nearly 2 feet of snow on the ground a couple of winters ago.

Here are a couple of photos. It isn't letting us get very close but we are trying to get some better shots.

Lincoln's Sparrow

Another shot of it.

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!

BirdLife International

We just learned of another wonderful birding organization that we wanted to let everyone know about. BirdLife International is a great group of people that are devoted to birds on a global scale. As their website states: "BirdLife is the world’s largest global alliance of conservation organizations that share a mission: to conserve wild birds, their habitats and global biodiversity".
We read through their website and they do some amazing work. They have great stories, wonderful photos, and up-to-date news stories all concerning birds and conservation. They have started a new area on their website called BirdLife Community. They also have a new Flickr group that you can view and join and submit your own photos!

They have blogs, pictures, videos, and news stories all about birds! When you have a few minutes, you should really check them out.

We just joined their Flickr group and will be posting some of our backyard photos.

Take care and good birding,
Seth and Michelle

Source: www.birdlife.org/community

The Great Backyard Bird Count

Well, it that time of year again. Yep, the Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up! It's a very fun and easy way to participate in citizen science and to have your observations truly contribute to the scientific studies of birds. Plus, it's something that you enjoy doing anyway....watching birds!

The first thing you can do, is set aside some time between Feb. 12th-15th to count birds. You can spend as little as 15 minutes counting on just 1 day, or as much as 10 hours each of the four days. It's completely up to you! For more info, just visit the GBBC website and have a look around.

(Townsend's Warbler)

Now, when the count actually starts (on Feb. 12th) the only thing you need to do is count the greatest number of each species that you see together at any one time. So, for example, if you see 5 Juncos together in the morning, and then you see 10 Juncos together in the evening, you would just mark down that you saw 10 Juncos. For more info on how it works, see this page.

(Yellow-Rumped Warbler)

If you're not sure what species you may have in your area, you can download and/or print a regional checklist directly from the GBBC website here!

(Evening Grosbeaks)

Then, after you are done with your count for the day, you can go here to the input page (the actual form will be available the first day of the count). This is a very easy form to fill out and only takes a few minutes. You just never know what you might find in your backyard!

(Bald Eagle)

So don't lounge around all day! Just pick up your binoculars and a piece of paper and keep track of what you see. If you want to, grab your camera and take some photos of the birds you see during the count. You can submit your pics on the site and have a chance to win some great prizes...take a look!

(Canada Goose Gosling)

A few photos

Here are a few photos from around the yard over the last few days. As always, we hope you enjoy them!

One of the 9 Band-Tailed Pigeons that are still coming in the yard everyday. Very unusual for this time of year.


The local Bewick's Wren grabbing a bite of suet.


One of the many Yellow-Rumped Warblers we get in the yard. This guy came in when we had our unexpected snow storm a couple of weeks ago.


Robins snacking on one of our Pyracantha shrubs. They really enjoyed the berries.

They picked this bush clean in just a couple of days. Notice the center Robin is just about to swallow a berry?

Another Yellow-Rumped Warbler, same feeder.

We noticed this Song Sparrow on our fence the other morning. What really caught our eye was the spider web stuck to his head.