I Used to Hate Birds

After a week of rain and uneventful birding I was itching to head east to sunshine...


I hit up a bunch of new spots as well as some ones I've visited before.  I started at Celilo Park on the Columbia River, then drove east on 206 where I stopped to check out some ponds and cliffsides.


Getting out of the car I heard a Canyon Wren, followed by a hollering Peregrine.


There were a pair of Peregrines flying around, eventually disappearing into the cliffside, hopefully at a nest.  I walked the dogs down the little trail there and found this head...


We walked a bit farther east to another pond and found a raven chasing a Cooper's Hawk while a kestrel watched from a post.


As the hawk flew off, a Red-tailed Hawk entered the scene and a Golden Eagle cruised by.


All that was missing was a Turkey Vulture. 


It was a pretty awesome mix of birds for this side of the road random stop.  After that I drove to the Wasco county border at the Deschutes River for another quick dog walk, then drove…

Yesterday morning I walked the dogs up to one of my local patches to see what was going on.  Bushtits, Bewick's Wrens, Canada Geese, Wood Ducks, and American Kestrels were all paired up, while a flicker drummed on a light post and Anna's Hummingbirds practiced display dives. 

Kestrel poop!




One of the hummingbirds seemed particularly interested in me and the dogs and followed us for awhile...


Yesterday afternoon my friend and I went up to Larch Mountain to finally retrieve my wildlife camera.  We found it after searching for an hour in the wrong spot, then about five minutes in the right spot.  The photos didn't show up when I put the SD card in my camera but when I got home I found I had actually caught some stuff.  First off, a person with their dog:


The time stamp is all wrong unfortunately- it reset to Jan 1, 2013 00:00 when I set it up.   So, about 00:00 really is about 13:00, and therefore this was like 7:30 a.m.  The only other animal I caught was actually a wild one…

Somehow I made it almost three months without visiting the Oregon coast- kind of a long time for me.  The recent tales of a scoter feeding frenzy along the south jetty of the Yaquina River finally motivated me to get out there.

Yaquina Bay Bridge + scoter party

I will be honest with you, I'm not sure exactly how this whole herring egg feeding thing works.  The internet has told me some interesting tidbits though, like how scoters spend 50% less time foraging when there is an ample supply of herring eggs around.  They also dive less overall.  If you want to pay 12 bucks to read a paper about it go here, and tell me what it says!


The internet also told me that scoters often dive at the same time to reduce the chances of gulls stealing their catches.  I'm not sure if that goes for herring eggs or if that's more related to mollusks and such.  Regardless, once one scoter dove it would set off a chain reaction of diving.

Waiting for the scoters to pop up

The scoters would also sudd…