I Used to Hate Birds

Heron in the slough

Yesterday I spent the day working on my motorless list.  I only added a couple species but had a lovely long walk with the dogs, and a nice bike ride over to Whitaker Ponds.

Lesser Goldfinch at Mason Wetlands

I finally organized my list taxonomically so I could easily see what I was missing... Turns out there's quite a few birds I can still hope to get before the year ends, so hopefully I will focus more on it these next couple months.  

American Kestrel, random field on NE 185th

Along the river things were pretty windy and gulls would soar slowly by...

Mew Gull

 Herring Gull...yes?  No.

Last week I discovered I could walk down to Johnson Lake, an area adjacent to the highway that may or may not be filled with homeless camps.  The lake can be viewed from Glass Plant Road without entering the sketchy woods surrounding it, and here I found a suspicious wigeon.  Breaking all rules Seagull Steve has ever written (ok, just one rule), I thought I had found an American x …

Something about October makes me want to run around in the mountains.  Maybe it's because I know the snow is coming and soon my car will weep at the thought of gaining more than a few hundred feet in elevation.  Anyhow I took the dogs up to Timothy Lake near Mt. Hood for a hike Saturday morning.


I don't know what we have done to deserve this amazing weather, or what we will have to suffer to pay for it, but I will try not to think about it...

The first bird I saw on the lake was chilly little Eared Grebe.


I noted five Barrow's Goldeneyes flying by, and it was only after looking at my photos that I realized one was an imposter.

Silly Bufflehead, your eye ain't golden.

I spooked a couple more Buffleheads when I crept out of the woods onto the beach.


Most of my hike I could see at least three Common Loons out on the water at one time, possibly up to five at one point. 


We had hiked a couple miles when I realized I had not brought any water and should probably not try to h…

Contrary to what you may think, it hasn't been all goshawks all the time lately.  Here are some other birds from the last couple weeks around town...

Red-breasted Nuthatch in the yard




 Cackling Goose party along Lower River Road, Vancouver



Canada vs. Cackling comparison, Vancouver(don't be fooled, the Canada:Cackling ratio was more like 20:5000)

A few good shrooms on an unbirdy hike on Wildcat Mountain:


Back to birds...

Common Merganser, Columbia River

Double-crested Cormorants, Columbia River

 Couple o' camouflaged creepers, Clackamette Park

 Herring Gull (I think *not*), Clackamette Park

And that's about it... Good times.

I have been itching to get up to Bonney Butte, a HawkWatch site on Mount Hood, ever since I first heard about it years ago.  You can't get there in a regular car, you need something with high clearance because the last few miles of road are just bananas.  Thankfully Rhett and his friend Sarah invited me to join them yesterday in an appropriate vehicle for a full day up at the butte. 

The roads aren't marked and after a lot of what seemed like dice-rolling rather than map-reading we ended up in a parking lot filled with fiending Gray Jays.

Crumbs for me, yes? 

A random bum in the parking lot offered up some donut crumbs to the jays...


One bold bird hopped in our car while we were getting our gear together.


Ok enough of those jokers.  We hiked up to the top and joined the two hawkwatchers for a chilly but awesome day of birds.  Initially the joke was that we had arrived just in time for peak robin migration.  They were flying by in dozens, almost constantly throughout the morning.…