Lazy days.

I had a super lazy weekend- no grand adventures or major birding excursions.  Yesterday afternoon I thought I would do some lazy birding and participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count.  I set about filling my feeder, putting out a fresh home-made "suet" cake, and tossing peanuts around.

Yeah.  My report ended up consisting of seven species.  And that's including "gull sp."


At least the scrub jays were happy.  At one point the birds all disappeared due to a very special and rare creature, the Roaming Mophead.


The mophead is a pretty funny dog- hates people but sure likes Jake and Ralph.  After he moved on the juncos came to visit.  Not as many as usual, but I counted about eight scattered around the yard.


As nice as couch-birding can be, the dogs decided it was time for the lazy weekend to end.  So we headed up to Vancouver for a couple hours of walking along the Frenchman's Bar Trail.  Not a lot of birds around, but did find a nice mixed sparrow flock at Frenchman's Bar Park...

White-throated & Golden-crowned Sparrow


Fox Sparrow


Spotted Towhee


To make this post slightly (only slightly) more interesting I am tossing in a couple photos of some Varied Thrushes from Lacamas Park last week (that damn Tufted Duck outshined them at the time).




Hopefully I'll do some real birding this week so I'll have something more exciting to share with you... Ah well, good times!

Comments

  1. You know, I'd be very happy with those birds in my back yard. Gotta get a yard first.

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  2. You do know of course that in the GBBC your "yard" is actually anywhere you bird over these four days?

    So even though i'm from Portland i added my count at Lacamas Park where i did NOT see that damn TUDU!!! And Ridgefield, Steigerwalt, Sauvie Island, and Coffee Lake.

    Crimony, Oregon is number six just behind Washington by what seems to be a continuing one bird on species count. Currently at 192 to 193 at 4PM. So don't add your Vancouver lake account!! I already screwed that up for us.

    Anyway, nice White-throated. I hammered Rentanaar Rd looking for the Harris' Sparrow and did not come up with a White-throat all day. Thirty or so Savannah's was a nice consolation on the day.

    Bird On!
    greg haworth

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    Replies
    1. Ha, yes, I realize I didn't have to do just my yard, and was actually going to submit my Vancouver sightings till I read that post on the Mid-Valley Birding site. I never knew there was such fierce competition in the northwest!

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    2. Alright, next year we've got to represent Portland! Only 140 lists and 91 species! My bad here, i didn't even bird the Portland area, but i could of added 5 species easily (WEGR, SSHA, COGE, WEME, OCWA) and another 4 possibly (WISN, GRHE, COLO, RECR).

      Corvallis? OK i lived there for over twenty years and they're pretty hard core in the birding community (their Audubon chapter really rocks!) but seriously? Just by shear numbers Portland can do better than that, no?
      greg

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  3. Those Varied Thrush are stunning. Send them down to Arizona please. I'm glad you threw in those photos to spice up this post; I almost fell asleep on the keyboard (not really, it was entertaining as always, and I do enjoy your nutty Scrub Jays).

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  4. Sounds like a perfect weekend to me! The Varied Thrush is a beautiful species.

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  5. I completely forgot--darn and it was the perfect weekend to do my yard cause it rained like crazy and the birds came in for a free meal.
    GREAT looking birds and your mophead is a cutie also...

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  6. Hi Jen, sometimes it feels good to have a lazy day. You did see some beautiful birds, the Varied Thrush is my favorite. And the mophead is cute. Happy Birding and have a great week!

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  7. Congrats! Roaming Mopheads are fairly rare here in Portland, in general. You may already know this, but yours is actually of the eastern race (black ear tips not found on westerns), which is even more unusual. I've had two in my Sellwood yard (westerns) in winter only.

    Also, you boggled my mind by convincing me that you had a White-throated X Golden-crowned Hybrid, until I FINALLY saw the Golden-crowned hiding in the blurry background. I was thinking, why the heck is that a White-throated X Golden-crowned, and how the heck did she identify it as such?

    Rhett :-)

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