[birding] Upper Luckiamute watershed miscellaneous

[Joel Geier]

Hi all,

This morning I surveyed some riparian habitat in the upper Luckiamute
River watershed, at & around Ft. Hoskins & Beazell Memorial Forest
(county parks) in Benton County, and Ritner Creek County Park in Polk
County. I had good luck on the weather, and was just writing down
vegetation info for my last point when it started to pour.

Birds that were well-represented in this habitat included PACIFIC-SLOPE
FLYCATCHER, WARBLING VIREO, SWAINSON'S THRUSH, and WILSON'S WARBLER. In
a couple of spots I heard EVENING GROSBEAKS singing, which I don't often
get to hear. I heard one MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER singing at Ritner Creek,
which also had an OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER in more customary habitat than
the one I saw yesterday.

I also heard one SOOTY GROUSE and one RUFFED GROUSE along the Plunkett
Creek loop trail at Beazell. The Sooty Grouse was hooting from up on the
ridge to the south, about halfway along the trail. The Ruffed Grouse was
drumming near the upper end of the loop.

The oddest sight of the day, on the drive over to Kings Valley just
after dawn, was several WILD TURKEYS along Maxwell Creek Road, right
next to about five TURKEY VULTURES that were munching on a deer carcass.
It almost looked like they were hanging out together until I dame along;
I wonder if the turkeys were getting a bit of a protein supplement, or
if they just happened to be passing by? This was about a mile east of
downtown Kings Valley. On my way home, the vultures were still working
on the carcass (up to seven vultures by then), while the turkey flock
was moving through a grassy slope on the north side of the road, about a
quarter mile east of the carcass.

Happy birding,
Joel

--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis