[birding] Willamette Park and Corvallis w. tanager

[howard bruner]

I spent a couple of hours today at Willamette
 Park doing the south loop up the
road/trail

and back along the primitive path closer to the river.  The effects of the deep freeze were

unnoticeable – I am amazed that there is virtually no sign
of freeze damage on plants

that generally grow here throughout the winter.  The green velvet of trunk and branch

epiphytes and the sage-colored lichen canopy seems to be
inhaling a giant wet breath of

relief and robust health. Low spots and river sported a
transparent silver mist and the

riparian gallery forest dripped from collected dew. Bird
life was collected and focused

into vibrant mixed-species flocks.  As David Fix points out in his Birdfellow.com
piece

the number of observed species in a winter passerine flock
is related to the time spent

talking to and interacting with the flock.

 

At the far end of my looper I spent a very exciting ten
minutes with song

sparrow, fox sparrow, spotted towhee, brown creeper,
golden-crowned kinglet, Steller’s

jay, robin, downy and hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, Bewick’s
wren, winter wren,

black-capped chickadee, and white-breasted nuthatch all in a
hot ball of feathers and

sound.  This
particular flock was heralded by the mothlike entrance and deluge by

bushtits around me and soon the bushes and trees were
jumping with a new species a

second.  There were
several distinct traveling bird circuses out in the forest.  The river is

running fast and brown and one double-crested cormorant and
GBH plus a few shot at

geese were all that the Willamette offered.  A rain started up before I got back out but
it

was so gentle that my steaming sweater never really got wet.

 

Yesterday I had a western tanager at the west end of Jefferson
  street.  I had
been enjoying

the flocks juncos, robins, yellow-rumps, western blues, and
finches. When about 3:00 PM

I had what I first assumed was another western bluebird at
the top of a tree approx. 40 m

distant.  But this
bird was much more horizontally perched and seemed a little long.  I

glassed it and got a good look at a largish flesh-colored bill
on an overall yellow body

with dark wings with bars, slightly lighter grayish back and
darkening on the top of the

head.  It was the
non-black bill that cinched the ID for me.

 

h

 

P.S.  Exceptional
pictures, Paul - thanks

 

 

 		 	   		  
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