Towheeblog

Not every bird song from a songbird is performed on camera.  This afternoon a Bewick’s Wren sang for Nora and me.  We were out for a walk, not home in late afternoon, though we did refuse to watch the narcissist’s rant followed by well-muscled young men trying to give one another concussions.  We went birding and the wren-song was our reward.  This was the fourth songbird species to sing in our presence in the past three days…before that I had heard only meadowlark songs…infrequently…since October.

JUST ANOTHER RED-TAIL…OR…
Camera better than eyes.  I should have known better. On our morning walk at Joe Dancer we heard a raucous flock of Canada Geese, invisible on the other side of the Yamhill River.  Probably scared  by an eagle, I said to my wife.  They are grazing on the other side in those pastures.  Forty minutes later as we are loading Nora into the car I note the hawk in the treetop.  Oh, I think, without binocs…must be a red-tail, first one of the month.  Camera knows better:

LESSER GOLDFINCHES ON NYGER FEEDER
Note the center bird is molting his head feathers.

Brown Creeper along Pinot Noir Drive:

Pinot Noir Drive NW, Yamhill, Oregon, US
Feb 2, 2020
9 species

Anna’s Hummingbird  1
Red-breasted Sapsucker  2
Acorn Woodpecker  X
Brown Creeper  1
Bewick’s Wren  1     singing
European Starling  X
American Robin  2
Dark-eyed Junco  80
Spotted Towhee  1

Joe Dancer Park, Yamhill, Oregon, US
Feb 2, 2020
7 species

Canada Goose  X
Bald Eagle  1
Northern Flicker  X
California Scrub-Jay  1
European Starling  X
American Robin  X
Dark-eyed Junco  X
THIS MORNING’S EPHEMERAL SNOWFALL