[birding] The week in babies

[howard bruner]

The week has been brimming with babies.  On the EPA campus and environs there are
family groups of red-shouldered hawk, chipping sparrow (2 young following a
parent all around with great expectations), and barn swallows; on the
bike/walking path from 35th to Bald Hill Park I found lesser
goldfinches trailing begging young as well as l.bunting and of course bc
chickadee (I don’t think I have ever seen so much reproduction from bc’s –
every thicket has young whining and practicing singing like so many diminutive
Pavoratti’s).  A warbling vireo was doing
a constant stream of mumbling and chuckling which put me in mind of those
vintage Popeye cartoons where all the characters kept up a running
under-the-breath dialogue as they went about their cartoon business.

 

Today along the Willamette at the
north end of the park I saw or heard red-shouldered hawk and multiple spotted
sandpipers.  On Finley, a cloud of 22
white pelicans soared over Cabell from the prairie overlook – when they banked
and caught the sun the sky flashed.  On
Bruce road I spent a long time alone and quiet in the Macfadden blind and was
rewarded with close visits from hatch-year GBH, and numerous shrilling c
waxwing young. A great egret stood out across the water like a snowman in the Sahara.
20 plus long-billed dowitchers moved around Macfadden still in brilliant
alternate plumage. A nutria as big a pot-bellied pig took its pleasure on a
small bump of dry ground in the shade of a scrappy willow shrub. In fact the
nutria traffic was pretty brisk and there is one out there that has a white
circle around its nose and an orange circle around its ear – quite
striking.  An osprey made several
attempts and came up dripping and sparkling and empty. The streaked horned
larks are still singing (multiple individuals) while a marsh wren and killdeer
chattered and wailed (respectively) in the Bruce Road
scrape. The fields are full of the cut straw waves of July gold.

 

Invertebrate Corner:  4
species of dragonfly and 2 species of damselfly, My first woodland skipper of
the year, the nymphs and swallowtail are abundant, and for those who love he
Odonates there is a population of pacific spiketail up on the 620 road in Mac
 Forest.
H


 


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