Towheeblog

Here are some shots from Barbara Rumer, taken on her recent time at Malheur NWR.

Stilts, Great Horned Owlets, raven with egg (raven, goose, duck?).

THE CURSE OF THE H-O-A

We all know the tales. Home Owners Associations that are nastier than academic committees or a PTA. I have a friend living in an unnamed HOA development in Oregon. He has a large energetic dog. The HOA will NOT let them fence their yard. So this poor dog can only run free at an inconvenient dog park. Often it is property values and their suspected vulnerability that lead to disputes, regulations, lawsuits and all the other HOA wonders. Remember the high-rise collapse in Florida and the dead residents? Well, there is brilliant HOA-type leadership for you. I had always believed that the HOA demonology was an invention of our species. Wrong again. Short of the atomic bomb, and plastics, and burning fossil fuels, there is little we do that some previous animal has not pioneered.

So Mr. Flicker is excavating his hole about a foot below the smaller one chuiseled by the Red-breasted Nuthatch. The latter resents the former–privacy, quiet, property values. Who wants to live next a woodpecker that screams a lot, and eats, ugh, ants on the ground. So both nuthatches are pestering the flicker hoping it will join a different HOA in a different tree. Who wants those thiungs in our neughborhood? We await results.

Enough ugliness, feast on some beauty. Mr. Tanager having breakfast:

Mostly the “plastic recycling” thing is a myth, and just spreads the problem around the planet in smaller particles. Click here for the tragic researched reality. Can you imagine our economy with only paper, wood and metal containers?

954 Ratcliff Drive SE, Marion, Oregon, US
May 6, 2023
10 species

Mourning Dove  X
California Scrub-Jay  X
American Crow  X
House Finch  X
Lesser Goldfinch  X
Golden-crowned Sparrow  2
Spotted Towhee  X
Orange-crowned Warbler  1
Western Tanager  6
Black-headed Grosbeak  1

954 Ratcliff Drive SE, Marion, Oregon, US
May 7, 2023
11 species

Northern Flicker  2     working at nest hole
Steller’s Jay  1
California Scrub-Jay  X
American Crow  X
Bushtit  2
Red-breasted Nuthatch  2     in conflict with flicker over nest location
House Finch  3
Lesser Goldfinch  4
Dark-eyed Junco  1
Spotted Towhee  1
Western Tanager  1