Towheeblog

NOV. 6, 2022

Rain is today’s theme, today’s tenor, today’s fluid being.  The birds know that the wetness will soon be joined by overnight cold.  The answer?  More and more calories consumed to be burned for body heat in the dark, shivery hours ahead.  Today the finches and sparrows, nuthatches and chickadees were consumed with consuming.

Our upstairs overlooks the neighbors’ dormant raised-bed garden just over the fence.  Many of the plants have gone to seed.  That attracted the whole sparrow contingent—song, golden-crowned, fox sparrow.  Juncos.  And our star guest, the white-throated sparrow.  The nearest nesting territory for this species is eastern British Columbia so this one crossed the Canadian Rockies, and maybe the Cascades unless it came down the coast.

Photographing the Bewick’s in the rain was near impossible. The Cooper’s Hawk, or another, used that same perch two days ago. Fox and golden-crowned perched side-by-side…very nice of them. Imagine what wet squirrels must smell like. The White-breasted Nuthatch posed, the reddy just kept movin’. In the American Goldfinch shots, one bird is much paler than any of the others I’ve seen here this fall. Partly leucistic, it seems. Female flicker driven to eating sunflower chips!

954 Ratcliff Drive SE, Marion, Oregon, US
Nov 6, 2022
18 species

Mourning Dove  7
Cooper’s Hawk  1
Northern Flicker  1
Steller’s Jay  1
California Scrub-Jay  4
American Crow  1
Black-capped Chickadee  2
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
Bewick’s Wren  1
House Finch  20
Lesser Goldfinch  5
American Goldfinch  30
Fox Sparrow  1
Dark-eyed Junco  20
Golden-crowned Sparrow  3
White-throated Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  1

Last eight years are hottest on record–click here.