Towheeblog

Blooming plants abound at Joe Dancer Park as soon as you get away from the manicured playing fields.  Tansy ragwort.  Canada thistle.  Dandelion.  Blackberry. Pennyroyal with its aromatic scent. Queen Anne’s lace.  Pink and white clovers.  Wild radish.  Purple vetch.  Yarrow.  Spirea, a checkermallow and Centaurium muehlengbergii—the only three natives I noted with blossoms.

The thistle is both blooming and bursting its earliest seed packs.  The American Goldfinches were there yesterday harvesting the first thistle seeds of this season.  Just today one showed up in our garden, far from the nearest thistles as far as I know.  Be shared a feeder with a male House Finch.  That bird and the Red-breasted Nuthatch are really scruffy-looking, molting their head feathers.

The fruit eaters—robin, waxwing, thrush—will have a fine time this summer.  Red-osier dogwood, chokecherry and blackberry all loaded with fruit.

There was a fly over Bald Eagle this morning.  The crows pretended to be upset but they love any pretense of hysteria.  The wood-pewee was flying sorties off the tallest bare limb rising above the foliage on a large ash tree across the river from the park.After I left the park there were two red-tails side-by-side on a pylon cross-bar north of the YCAP offices:Five species of birds that I have seen at Joe Dancer are new for that location this year: the eagle, House Finch, waxwing, wood-pewee…and surprisingly, today I saw a Savannah Sparrow there for the first time ever.  This year the clover fields seem to be perfect for such small seed-eaters.

Joe Dancer Park, Yamhill, Oregon, US
Jul 9, 2019
8 species

Bald Eagle  1
Western Wood-Pewee  1
American Crow  14
Barn Swallow  1
American Robin  1
Cedar Waxwing  1
Savannah Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  2

Joe Dancer Park, Yamhill, Oregon, US
Jul 8, 2019
8 species

California Scrub-Jay  X
American Crow  X
Barn Swallow  6
Swainson’s Thrush  1
American Robin  X
House Finch  1
American Goldfinch  5
Song Sparrow  X