Varied thrush (Oregon juncos are also in that same frame,) song sparrow, pine siskin and a reappearance by our local red-breasted nuthatch (in the same frame as the pine siskin.) Not pictured in either post: scrub jay, fox sparrow, robin, evening grosbeak (seasonal,) western gold finch (when we put out thistle, usually just in summer,) rufous hummingbird (seasonal,) Anna's hummingbird (seasonal,) golden-crowned sparrow (rare, for us,) cedar waxwing (seasonal, transient,) european starling (sigh,) barn swallow (seasonal,) violet-green swallow (seasonal,) tree swallow (seasonal,) pileated woodpecker, northern flicker, great horned owl, barn owl, American kestral (if you're local look up on the wire near the big cow barn across from Windy Ridge--there's almost always one sitting there in plain sight. They come up to our house too but they're so small we rarely see them,) red-tailed hawk, osprey, great blue heron, osprey, and turkey vulture (sometimes we get a whole flight of them soaring just a few feet off the blackberries.) We've had pheasants, but they're delicious so they're usually eaten by coyotes, owls, hawks, raccoons or other predators before they can reproduce locally.
Maybe I'll make a project of getting pics of our local birds. I predict that the most difficult real possibility is going to be the heron, because they never land on our property, just overfly, but never is an awfully strong word and you never know. Unfortunately I see no possibility of capturing an image of our owls with my current equipment. I'd need a tripod, a scope and a camera that attaches to it and a very clear, bright, full moon night combined with the owl very kindly settling for a long time on our snag so that I can do a long exposure.
Yeah. Not gonna happen.
Or maybe someday Rory will have a camera in the car with him the next time a barn owl flies onto the road in front of him and stands there staring, offended that the car would dare shine its nasty light on its loveliness. Click!
These images are clickable for the semi-full-sized view. I didn't want to download the humungous files onto the web because it would take forever on dialup.
3 comments:
You're place would be an amateur ornithologist's dream (or even a reality, as the case seems to be)!
I remember getting freaked out by the sight of a western tanager in my yard when we lived in Milwaukie. My parents refused to believe me till it came back a few days later and I pointed it out to them.
Owls rock! (Well, actually, they kind of "who"...)
I love the varied thrushes! They are so colorful. We get a few here amid the swarms of chickadees and nuthatches.
It is a lot of fun to have so many birds around here. I'm getting better at attracting new kinds. As our garden starts to take shape we'll see some of the birds that stick to the woods come up closer to the house to take advantage of bird-friendly and bird-attractive plants. That'll be cool.
The other thing we're missing right now is a water feature. There are quite a few birds that turn their little beaks up at a birdbath. Give them a pond or fountain, however, and they're all over that. I have the parts for a fountain that should take only a weekend to put together. Finding that weekend may be tricky, but it will happen.
Build the fountain, and they will come.
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