I Used to Hate Birds

Yesterday I wanted to visit somewhere I'd never been before so I consulted the good ole Birding Oregon book for ideas.. My initial plan was to check out Marys Peak, and I made it most of the way to the top, but it was so foggy and rainy I gave up.  I headed back down to check out William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge instead...

Outside Corvallis some Wild Turkeys crossed the road in front of me!



It was a good-sized flock!  I've only seen that many turkeys in my hometown in Connecticut...



Too bad I only got fuzzy photos... I forget how crazy they look!

At the refuge I decided to check out the Woodpecker Trail.  I quickly found a Pileated Woodpecker flying around calling loudly...


There were also a few trees filled with kinglets and chickadees...

Golden-crowned Kinglet

This next fella darted over a log when I came around a corner...  I took a couple steps towards him to take a peek, and he peeked back:


Ok so the next bird I saw drove me absolutely nuts.  I heard him and my f…

I will take any excuse to hang out on Sauvie Island, especially a surprisingly beautiful Friday afternoon off from work!  I started off at the Wapato Access Greenway Trail...


It was soooooo pretty there!  And the birds weren't too bad either... Right away I noticed a tree full of Golden-crowned Kinglets....

Those buggers are fast and furious so I could barely get a photo of them...


Next up were some bushes filled with towhees, juncos, and sparrows... Most of the sparrows were Golden-crowned... Then I heard a bird singing just uphill from me... It was a sparrow but it sounded so nice!


A Fox Sparrow!  A first for me!

I continued around the trail and caught sight of a bird fly from the ground up into a tree... I took a few quick shots before it flew off...


At the time all I could think of was that it was the bird from the cover of Birding Oregon but I could not for the life of me think of what it was... Hot damn it was a Varied Thrush!  Another first!!!

After the Wapato Trail I decid…

I love Cathedral Park.  It's beautiful, you can walk out onto a dock in the Willamette, there's an off-leash area, and the colors are stunning in the fall.  I always bring my camera but I don't usually find many interesting birds.

This morning I took Jake there as a belated mini-celebration of his 5th birthday... It was super pretty and after wandering around the river shoreline I followed the sounds of little birds in the trees.  I managed to find my first kinglets!  They've been on my mind lately because everyone seems to see them, but I never had.


A Golden-crowned Kinglet! 


I also saw what I think is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (let me know if I'm totally off on this one!!)



Also in the trees were tons of Bushtits, Brown Creepers, and Black-capped Chickadees... Good times!

I spent a couple hours at Ridgefield yesterday experiencing all kinds of rain, hail, and sunshine...  It started to downpour just as I began the auto route, so I pulled over to watch a Great Egret plucking teeny tiny fish out of the pond...

And then he crept slowly over to the side of the pond and plucked a little rodent out of the grass...




And finally, he ate it...


Delicious!

It continued to pour the rest of the way around the route, until the very last curves... The sun came out and a beautiful rainbow appeared over a field filled with egrets...


I decided to drive around one more time since the rain had let up...  Some Sandhill Cranes had shown up and were making quite a racket.  I was looking the other way when I heard the racket increase tenfold... I turned to look and they were flying towards me...


Then I noticed this guy approaching...


Yay!!! My first of the season... He really stirred things up just flying over the marsh.... 

Towards the end of the route I stopped to take some …

This morning Jake and I walked the Frenchman's Bar Trail in Vancouver.  It leads from Vancouver Lake through a bunch of farmland to Frenchman's Bar Park on the Columbia River.  We ended up doing about six or seven miles worth of walking....


The geese stayed in this one field while the Sandhill Cranes chose a different one across the way, a bit hidden by some blackberry bushes...



In yet another field I passed were some Greater White-fronted Geese (though a bit less white-fronted than usual...juveniles?)


Hawks kept flying off from telephone poles before I even realized they were there...


It was pretty cool to watch the geese when the farmers started mowing (plowing?) the fields...


This nice slug was on the trail too:

Nice.

Just as Jake and I reached the Frenchman's Bar Park the rain started.  Perfect.  We were about 3 miles from the car.  We huddled under a play structure for a bit and watched the rain and some juncos...


There were tons of them, and more kept joining them...


…

I decided to head up to Ridgefield this afternoon since the weather is about turn very wet for awhile...

It was yet another beautiful fall day!  We have had the best October!

Even this turtle was showing its fall colors:

Ok so he just had leaves stuck to his shell, but still... he seemed festive.

My favorite sighting was this Great Horned Owl taking an afternoon nap:

Yay!  The only owls I saw this summer were flying away from me on the Kiwa Trail.

I did manage to see some Sandhill Cranes on this visit, but only from a distance..


And of course plenty of geese...


All around the refuge were tons and tons of kestrels... On my way out I noticed this guy with his afternoon snack:


Not a bad afternoon! 

I just found some photos I took in Newport, OR in August...  I never actually ID'd the birds until just now- forgot I had even taken them...


Black Turnstones!  So cool!  I remember seeing them right near the dock where the sea lions are...


Oh and my friends and I went whale-watching and I didn't post photos of that either!   We did one of those tours from Depoe Bay.


I believe it's a California Gray Whale.


Outside the Oregon Coast Aquarium were some birds in the mudflats... Some kind of blackbird?

Weird little baldy!

Also.... yesterday I hit up both Westmoreland Park and Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden... I'll just post a few of my favorite photos...

Bad hair day?


Mother Goose?
So handsome!