Towheeblog

Wonderful to hear the rain. I opened a door to listen to rain pouring down last night (and the screen door kept out any four-footers…I see skunk divets in our garden regularly). Our first real rain since May. Pouring down this evening again after brief respite…and we had .7 inch by noon. We’re six inches down for the year, so let it pour, let it pour, let it pour…

There are now six turkeys in our local marauding flock (up from five). They barely yield for cars, they diss pedestrians and one neighbor told me they came to her front door and made angry sounds at her two-year-old daughter. They are certainly the toughest wild animals in our neighborhood. We have no coyotes, bears nor wolverines. Does the Second Amendment give these particular turkeys the right to carry guns, too?

I ran a choice experiment today. After the morning rain stopped I put out both peanuts in the shell and acorns, scattered around together. Four scrub-jays and one bold Steller appeared within seconds. The Steller took two peanuts in his beak and left; the scrubs chased him pointlessly, repeatedlty. None of them seem to get the two-nut trick!? Wrong beak size? Three of the scrubs took peanuts in singularity. But Junco Jay took three acorns in sequence. His behavior and aplomb make me think he’s a mature male, and he certainly knows his corvid history. Oregon jays have eaten oak acorns for millions of years. Peanuts are an introduced delicacy like blueberries and crabapples. Here is one of my many archival shots of Junco Jay dislplaying his namesake tail:

I saw one Vaux’s Swift high overhead today.

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On the top of a fund-raising appeal letter from Greenpeace today I read this:
“Endless pursuit of limitless growth, on a planet with finite resources, has a predictable end that’s already in sight.”

Wow, at last one conservation group now openly admits that the current systems under which we operate are dooming the planet. That’s a huge step away from pretending there is some future tipping point. If there is any creature to write history of mankind it may well be that the invention of money was the tipping point, passed long ago.

The U.N. recnetly warned we could be heading toward 2.7 degrees Celsius. of average temp rise. More direct and not captive to member states nor corporations, writer George Monbiot sees 2.9 degrees rise, click here.

In California the continuing fires (they are NOT getting any of this rain front) now threaten the largest living single trunk trees on earth–sequoia. Click here.

I know goats d horrific damage if turned loose on islands, or allowed to roam across senstivie habitat. They eat as they go–tree leaves, poison oak, and fruit or berries or roses. Similar to deer they browse. Grass is mundane and disdained. Goats may be the best way to revent horrible raging wildfires. Read this.

Waiting for service on car at Toyota dealer I saw my first Ruddy Ducks and Glaucous-winged Gull of the season, our winter neighbors are settling in.

Lake Capitol, Marion, Oregon, US
Sep 17, 2021
14 species

Mallard  8
Ruddy Duck  2
Pied-billed Grebe  1
American Coot  3
Western Sandpiper  2
Glaucous-winged Gull  1     first of season in Salem
Great Blue Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  1
California Scrub-Jay  X
American Crow  4
Barn Swallow  3–still not gine yet. I saw several in downtown Salem Saturday as well
American Goldfinch  X
White-crowned Sparrow  X
Brewer’s Blackbird  15