Commonwealth Park

We went to Commonwealth Park in Beaverton yesterday for a quick bird walk. The weather was pretty miserable, but the birding was awesome! We saw First of Year Osprey and Hutton's Vireo, as well as a ton of other birds. This is a great place to bird and is easy on the feet.

Hope you enjoy!

An Osprey takes a fish in the lake, scaring the you know what out of a flock of American Wigeons.


The Osprey then flew right over our heads, carrying the fish.


A Yellow-Rumped Warbler, Myrtle variety.


This Cedar Waxwing flew into the tree we were standing under. It was great to see it so close up.

A Coot displaying his wonderful feet for us.

A Red-Tailed Hawk scanning for some lunch.

There were a lot of Red-Winged Blackbirds all over the park.

A Ruby-Crowned Kinglet flitting in and out the shrubs.

A Song Sparrow trying to hide.

This Song Sparrow living up to it's name.

Yesterday's list (41* species):

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Gadwall

Eurasian Wigeon

American Wigeon

Mallard

Bufflehead

Pied-Billed Grebe

Osprey

Northern Harrier

Red-Tailed Hawk

*Possible* Rough-Legged Hawk

Coot

Killdeer

Rock Dove

Anna's Hummingbird

Downy Woodpecker

Flicker

Hutton's Vireo

Steller's Jay

Scrub-Jay

Crow

Tree Swallow

Black-Capped Chickadee

Bushtit

Red-Breasted Nuthatch

Bewick's Wren

Ruby Crowned Kinglet

Robin

Starling

Cedar Waxwing

Yellow-Rumped Warbler (Audubon's and Myrtle)

Spotted Towhee

Song Sparrow

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

Junco

Red-Winged Blackbird

Brewer's Blackbird

House Finch

Lesser Goldfinch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

5th Annual Wings and Wine Festival

Good morning to all! Coming up on May 8th, 2010 is the 5th annual Fern Ridge Wings and Wine Festival! If you haven't been to this awesome event before, this is the year you should plan on going. It is about as much fun as you can possibly have! Let's see...wine + birds? Does it get much better?

At the Fern Ridge Wings and Wine Festival they have a ton of different activities going on all day long. All sorts of walks, classes, tours, and talks are scheduled. You can take a look at their events schedule here. This festival really is a lot of fun and they have activities for the whole family.

Some of the events do require pre-registration and a nominal fee, but again, all the events are well worth it. You can take a look at the events that require pre-registration and register for them here.

Michelle and I are really looking forward to attending the festival and we hope to see a lot of you there. If you see us walking around, please feel free to say hi!

Take care and good birding,
Seth and Michelle

More pics from the yard

It's been a really busy week for us, but we still managed to snap a few photos. We have been seeing a few bright yellow American Goldfinches lately. We also had our first of the year Rufous Hummingbird, but he flew off before we could get a photo (don't they always?). We saw our first of the year White-Crowned Sparrow (pics below). We usually have White-Crowned all winter long, but not this year.

We hope you enjoy these pics.

A Bewick's Wren grabbing some bugs under our office window.


2 Townsend's Warblers trying out a new blend of NePo Suet.


A Downy Woodpecker dining on some suet.


A Junco, a White-Crowned Sparrow, and a Golden-Crowned Sparrow grabbing some seed spread out on the ground.

A Flicker feeding on the ground.

A male Northern Flicker eating some NePo Suet, taken through our bathroom window.

An American and Lesser Goldfinch using a thistle sock.

An adult Golden-Crowned Sparrows (left) with 2 juveniles.

Another juvenile Golden-Crowned Sparrow.

Take care and good birding!

Our yard

The yard has been a little quieter this winter than in past years. We're not sure exactly why. It has been a very mild winter here in Portland, so that may be part of the cause. Don't get me wrong, our yard is still pretty busy, just not quite as busy as the last few years.

We have been missing the Pine Siskins and White-Crowned Sparrows. We have seen a total of 4 Pine Siskins this whole season. Usually, we have 100's of them.

But, it's still been a great season and we always enjoy our backyard friends, whether it's 1 bird or a thousand. Here are a few photos from the last few days.

Here are a couple of the Red-Shafted Flickers grabbing some of their favorite suet. We have 6-8 Flickers that hang around on a regular basis.


Earlier this year, we had a Pink-Sided Junco in the yard. Now, we have a Slate-Colored Junco hanging around!


One of the beautiful Lesser Goldfinches eating some Nyjer seed. We are lucky enough to have these guys all year long.

A Robin checking one of our flower beds for some tasty worms!

It's been too long...

Good morning to all! Sorry that we have not been up on the proverbial ball lately! We have been super busy with getting our suet company, NePo Suet, going and we haven't been birding nearly as much as we would have liked to (but isn't that always the case?).

So, without further ado, here are some bird photos and we hope to be a little better about posting in the future!

Female Anna's Hummingbird


Yellow-Rumped Warbler grabbing some suet.


We have seen the Spotted Towhee in our backyard quite a bit this winter!


The Sharp-Shinned Hawks are still regular visitors.

An Orange Variant House Finch.

A Red-Shafted Flicker having lunch with us!

An Orange-Crowned Warbler snooping around the backyard.

The Red-Breasted Nuthatches seem to be in smaller numbers this year (at least for us).

A beautiful male Lesser Goldfinch.

A Chestnut-Backed Chickadee hanging out on a sunny day!

NePo Suet Company - Premium, Handcrafted Suet

Hello to all! Sorry that we have not posted in almost a month, but we have been really busy with our new business, NePo Suet Company! We officially started NePo Suet last month and have been going gangbusters since then.

.

We have been making suet for quite a while now for our own backyard birds. More recently, because it has been such a hit in our yard, we started thinking about starting a suet business.

.

We had quite a few people try it in their yard, all around the country, and we received a phenomenal response! Everyone has loved it and had great things to say. A few local stores have started to carry NePo Suet and we are trying to get into more soon.

We have spent the last many months perfecting the recipe and we have come up with, what we think, is the best suet on the market. Taste test after taste test has proven that birds prefer NePo Suet to any other suet on the market, even the more expensive ones.

.

Some quick facts about NePo Suet:

All of our suet is no melt!

Our suet cakes weigh about 25% more than other cakes on the market, but still fit in any suet feeder.

We make the suet in very small (14 cake) batches to insure quality and consistency.

We have 6 varieties right now and will have different seasonal cakes all year long.

We buy all of our ingredients for our suet from small, local vendors.
.

If you would like to order some NePo Suet and you live in Portland, please give us a call at

503-953-6018 to schedule a pick up. If you live outside the Portland area, we can (and do) ship all over the country. If you order a full case (12) you will receive free shipping to anywhere in the US.

Jackson Bottom Wetlands

Yesterday, Michelle and I went to Jackson Bottom Wetlands to scout for some first of year birds. We weren't disappointed! We identified 51 species and suspect at few other species. It was a little foggy at first, but it burned off pretty quickly. Hope you enjoy the photos. A list of birds we saw is at the end of this post.


2 adult Bald Eagles flew right over our heads as we were making our way through the area.

This was a very friendly Song Sparrow that decided to investigate our intentions a little closer.

A Belted Kingfisher scanning for some breakfast.

We saw quite a few Fox Sparrows in our travels around the wetland.

Also plentiful were the Bewick's Wren.

A flock of Dunlin at one of the ponds. The were very well camouflaged.

One of our favorite birds is the White-Breasted Nuthatch. He was just slowly working his way around this tree.

List of birds we saw at Jackson Bottom:

American Goldfinch

Lesser Goldfinch

House Finch

Red-Winged Blackbird

Junco

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

White-Throated Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Fox Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Spotted Towhee

Yellow-Rumped Warbler (both Audubon's and Myrtle)

Starling

Robin

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

Marsh Wren

Bewick's Wren

White-Breasted Nuthatch

Bushtit

Black-Capped Chickadee

Crow

Scrub-Jay

Steller's Jay

Flicker

Downy Woodpecker

Belted Kingfisher

Mourning Dove

Dunlin

Killdeer

Coot

Kestrel

Red-Tailed Hawk

Bald Eagle

Great Egret

Blue Heron

Cormorant

Pied-Billed Grebe

Ruddy Duck

Common Merganser

Bufflehead

Lesser Scaup

Canvasback

Green-Winged Teal

Pintail

Shoveler

Mallard

American Wigeon

Tundra Swan

Cackling Goose

Canada Goose