Today I was dealt a full thrush. In fact, the birds were almost four aces, a straight thrush at least. The fog and I were out in the rain–she can be insistent. And such a scowl if I demur–a wrinkle on her graying forehead and I melt. She’s a large dog and already eleven year old. How can I ever say, “no” now?
As usual Nora’s birding instincts are better than mine. After mudding around in one of the dog pens at Grenfell Park along Baker Creek Road, we walked to the back of the park way from the highway. There birds were on the ground feasting on whatever soggy turf provides–earthworms? Flickers, robins and a scad of Varied Thrush. Thus my thrush flush.
There are three in this shot, each with a colored dot over its head–two males on the right, female to left.
We walked past one of the large cedars. The tree’s needles are so closely packed that nearly all the rain falling was skirted out to the drip line. Near the massive trunk the ground was damp but there was no perceptible precip falling. There was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet feeding among the cedar needles. A creeper was hiking up the tree trunk. The creeper went up into the dense limbs and vanished from sight. The kinglet held ground. He beheld man and dog, sized us up as slow dim-witted. “Be gone you interlopers. This is my bed of cedar duff.”
So I took some pics and we were gone as instructed. After several minutes thrushing around at the far end of the park near the toilet buildings. we walked back past the cedar and Mr. Kinglet was still holding ground. He refused to even look at us a second time. You will see that his colored crest is barely visible indicating a low level of agitation. Upper right picture will enlarge if you click on it. So you can see the KING’s crown on kinglet.
Baker Creek is running high and swirling around the alder tree trunks that line what is the usual edge of the stream.
Baker Creek Road, Yamhill, Oregon, US
Jan 13, 2020. 9 species
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Northern Flicker 3
American Kestrel 1
American Crow 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Brown Creeper 1
European Starling X
Varied Thrush 20
American Robin 2
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