Our McMinnville Parks birding trip was at Baskett Slough this morning, masks all around, birds all around, nearly no water. Most abundant were the swallows…but best of all: 2 Black Terns, two bittern fly-overs, a Green Heron posing in good light, seven shorebird species and more Mourning Doves than collared.
Here are three fine tern pics by Albert Ryckman. One bird is deep into molt:
Here are some of Albert’s other fine photos, including the Green Heron that eBird thinks is rare there:
Above the Spotted Sandpiper still proudly wearing his spots–they will molt away soon. Harrier, Great Egret, some of the hundreds of Violet-greens on the same wire where we later saw robin, waxwing, et al.
At one point a tern was going after a nearby harrier as it coasted past:
The action was all screams and feints, the tern never actually touched the slower harrier. Here are some of my other pictures from today–we all know the phrase “cute kid” and today it morphed into a very similar “coot kid”. Our only reptile today was this two-foot, but footless, garter snake:
TVs ON THE MUD
Eating sun-baked fish corpses? Old frog parts? (We heard bullfrogs more than once today.)
SWALLOWS OF LATE SUMMER, TAKING A HARD LINE
SHOREBIRDS
Peeps–Western Sandpiper pale and bigger, Least in back with colorful throat. Stilt. Spotty.
JUVIE PIED-BILLED GREBE
We did not see a single nutria!
Baskett Slough NWR, Polk, Oregon, US
Aug 1, 2020
40 species
Canada Goose 400
Cinnamon Teal 3 Morgan Lake
Mallard X
Pied-billed Grebe 15
Eurasian Collared-Dove X
Mourning Dove 10
American Coot 3
Black-necked Stilt 2 Morgan Lake
Killdeer 10
Least Sandpiper 25
Western Sandpiper 8
Long-billed Dowitcher 4
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Greater Yellowlegs 3
Black Tern 2
American Bittern 1
Great Blue Heron 6
Great Egret 8
Green Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 20
Northern Harrier 2
American Kestrel 1
California Scrub-Jay 2
American Crow 4
Tree Swallow X
Violet-green Swallow X
Barn Swallow X
Cliff Swallow X
European Starling X
American Robin 1
Cedar Waxwing 1
House Finch 3
American Goldfinch 40
Savannah Sparrow 8
Song Sparrow 4
Spotted Towhee 1
Yellow-headed Blackbird 1
Red-winged Blackbird X
Brewer’s Blackbird X
Common Yellowthroat 1
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