On the Way Home... Yearning For More Birding

On the way home from my afternoon of owling and then grocery shopping, I was still yearning for more birding! So I took the back road instead of jumping on the highway towards home. There is a natural bog/wetland area with a dead end road on one side and agricultural land on the other side of the road. I had never ventured down the dead end road before, but it seemed like a great place to bird!

The first bird I saw was an Eurasian Collared Dove hanging out on the phone lines. A different looking bird than I've seen around here, but I used to get Mourning Doves at my feeder when we lived on the west side of the state in Poulsbo. They look very similar except for the 1/2 necklace around the Eurasian's neck. This is a new life bird (#99) for me! After I took a few photos, it flew away...

Eurasian Collared Dove

Down the road a bit were thirty American Crow perched in some trees. I'm not sure I have seen that many crows together all at once. As soon as I snapped a picture of them...

A Murder of American Crow

They made a bunch of noise and then flew away...

American Crows in Flight

I was able to get some photos of some more birds in flight, I wasn't real sure what kind of birds they were and I couldn't tell much from the distant photo. But when I looked again on the computer and zoomed in real close I could tell that they were  some sort of Geese or Swan. My friend Jana from across the lake had text me this last weekend and told me the swans were here on the lake. So I researched swans some more and I do believe these were Tundra Swans! Another lifer bird for me! That would be number 100!!!

Tundra Swans

Flying away seemed to be the thing to do today. Here I caught a huge flock of blackbirds, that looked more like mostly brown birds when I looked at the picture on the computer. Not exactly sure what kind. Originally, I thought Starlings? Red-winged Blackbirds? Brown-headed Cow Birds? Can't really tell in this pic.

What kind of Birds???

There were a dozen ducks out in the field. I was leery of using the binoculars, as they have made me car sick before. But I was wearing my SEA-Bands for motion sickness, and so far, I have not been car sick since I have tried them. So I peered through the binoculars, and could see that they were mostly Mallards, except one odd man out. I snapped a distant photo to help with identification later. When I was able to zoom in on my computer and check my my new Stokes Field Guide, I deciphered it to be a Pintail Duck. Not a lifer for me, but definitely not one that I see often. I can't remember when I've seen one, but it is marked in my book with a date of October 2005, so there you go!

Pintail Duck with a bunch of Mallards

Now it's not a bad day when you see FOUR Bald Eagles! I saw the first Bald Eagle of the year earlier in the day not more than a couple of miles from here on Highway 395 in Clayton.

 

 




I stopped and pulled over on the shoulder of the highway and snapped a couple of quick shots. To far off for decent photos, but at least you can see the eagle!










Here is another far off, distant photo of one of the Bald Eagles. I also saw two Bald Eagles together, but...

The two eagles took flight as I got my camera ready to take photos. It was all I could do to push the button on the camera and point it in that direction in hopes of catching the birds in the viewfinder. These pics didn't turn out well either, so I decided to use a new technique. I photo-merged the five Eagle flight shots to get this effect. Took me a few tries to perfect it, but how cool is that? Much more interesting than showing you the individual shots one by one like I was going to do.

Photo-merged Bald Eagle in Flight

The Red-winged Blackbird males have been seeking out the best ponds with cat tails for a couple of weeks. The males migrate back first to scope out their territory. The old saying... "The early bird gets the worm" applies here. The early birds get the best territory. Now that the females are showing up,  I love watching the males show off and broaden their shoulders and puff up the red and yellow part of their wings.

Red-winged Blackbirds

And there he goes... flying off...

On the way home from a family get together in town last weekend... I was enjoying being out and about and seeing some birds. I got excited when I saw a Northern Shrike, and wanted to turn around to go check it out (I don't have any pics of one). Bird Lady Assistant (a.k.a. my husband) murmured a resounding NO. But I was still yearning for more birding! So after I dropped off the family at home, I let my chihuahua Jack E. Cheez hop in the car, and come birding with me. I had seen some ducks back at the wetland a mile from my house. Now that the lake was starting to defrost and there was a little of the lake showing, the birds will start showing back up. It's an exciting time here for this Bird Lady! There were a dozen ducks, all Common Mergansers, and then one Common Goldeneye. Funny that each time I've seen a Goldeneye this year, they have been the only one in a group of other ducks. In this picture, the Goldeneye is... yep, flying off... from the group of Mergansers. The lucky ducks are the first (I've seen) to enjoy the lake this year!

Common Goldeneye flying away from the group of Common Mergansers

On the Way Home...

Finally, I'm at home, relaxing in my recliner, and I hear an all too familiar sound coming from outside. I leap up, open the slider to the balcony, and sure enough, I hear the resident Osprey, returning after a long winter to check out the annual nest that is just a few yards away from my balcony. However, there is a huge tree in between the balcony and the nest tree, and way too many branches blocking my sight of the nest. Oh what I would give to have a clear shot. Guess I'll have to use the neighbors deck behind us to get some pictures. They have a great view of the Osprey nest! As I'm out on the balcony, I also hear the Pileated Woodpecker that have been calling out to each other the last couple of days. It's great to be adding some new yard birds to the list. Be sure to check out my yard list, 2013 list, and life list on Bird Lady's Lists. I have 17 yard birds, 45 Species in 2013, and  finally 100 species on my life list!!!

and yet I'm still... Yearning for More Birding!

~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

Owling During the Last Week of Winter

It's still a bit snowy around here and the lake is still frozen solid this last week of winter. But today it was to be the warmest day of the year so far, near 60 degrees, so I thought it would be a good day to get out and about and do some birding. As I headed out, I noticed a small amount of water along the edge of the ice down at the wetland. Look closely, you can barely see the reflection of the sky in the water where the dock is floating between the ice on the lake and the snow on the beach. I am so excited to see that reflection and my old friend the lake. Oh how I've missed it over the long winter.

Finally the ice is starting to recede!

My plan for the day was to head over to Deer Park to look for evidence of the owls my daughter has been hearing at night behind her apartment. The other night, when I got home after dark, I heard an owl near our house too. After listening to all the owl sounds on my iBird app, I decided that it sounded like a Great Horned Owl. I would love to get some proof of it, but there is still alot of snow around our place. There isn't much snow at all in Deer Park so it's much easier to walk around there. So today I did my owling in the woods behind the apartment complex. The first thing I came upon was this cool fort.

Neat fort with a Home Sweet Home sign inside

Then I stumbled upon another type of home. Wonder what type of woodpecker made these holes?

There was an old fallen down barn in the lot next door. I had fun exploring inside...












Looked like the perfect hangout for barn owls. It was a little spooky...

Vole Tunnels

In the field were tons of tunnels made by voles, also known as field mice, making it a perfect area for owls to hunt.

Entrances to the tunnels

Then I made my way to the wooded area, checking the ground around each tree looking for owl pellets. Owl pellets are the regurgitated indigestible parts of the food the owl eats, and contains bones, fur, feathers and such. I did see a few questionable piles of waste, but didn't feel like poking around in it to see if it was owl or dog waste. I also came upon several deer droppings.

As I scoured the trees up and down, checking the tangles of branches, I hear some sweet little tweets coming from the woods. I followed the tweets and found some cute tiny birds flitting about the pine trees. They moved so quickly, it was hard to get a glimpse of them. But I would see a flash of yellow on the tiny birds crown, and a fleck of red on the crown of some. First bird that came to mind was a Kinglet. There are Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and I wasn't sure without checking my references which these little birdies were. I tried to get a decent picture of the cute little things, but the were so quick to flit about the tangles of the trees, that it was next to impossible to get a good shot in. I did get enough pictures that I could confirm the I.D. as being the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The male and females both have the yellow crowns, but the males also have a red spot on their crown too, hence the Ruby-crowned. Here are the pics that cinched the identity.

So I spent almost an hour and a half wandering through the woods and found plenty of evidence that this was perfect owl territory, but no actual owl evidence. This won't be my last time, as I plan to go back in the near future!

~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

Birding at Gonzaga Campus

Finally, after being stuck at home for a week, I was able to get out of the house and do some birding. Last week when I attempted to get some badly needed birding in, I got car sick, really car sick, and ended up with a two day migraine and no desire to ever get back in a car. So this Bird Lady was more than ready to get some outdoors in!

After taking myself out to lunch, I drove to Gonzaga University (#1 team in NCAA college basketball right now, GO BULLDOGS!), parked my car, and started walking across campus until I came upon this fellow...

Spike the Bulldog's mascot

As I continued walking, I could hear the birds singing, and looked up into a huge tree to see what types of birdies were making the sweet sounds. I recognized the American Robins of course, and a couple of European Starlings. There were also some small grayish birds that I snapped a couple of photos of in hopes to identify them once I downloaded the pictures to the computer, and got a better look. I do believe the little birds were American Goldfinches in winter plumage. After the big tree with birds, I made my way to a large pond at the back of the campus. Imagine my delight when I saw a gazebo with bird feeders on both sides! I made a b-line for the gazebo and right away noticed several little birds enjoying the feeders. There was a pair of House Finches sharing one feeder with a Black-capped Chickadee.

Male House Finch

House Finch & Black-capped Chickadee

Under the other feeder, there were several Dark-eyed Juncos dining and a male House Sparrow enjoyed the fallen seed too.

Male House Sparrow

I spent quite some time enjoying the feeder activity, and then continued my stroll along the pond's edge. A Northern Flicker and Red-breasted Nuthatch caught my eye, but didn't cooperate for pictures. A couple of pairs of Mallard ducks swam along the shore of the pond and there was a neat water feature in the middle.

Water Feature in the middle of the pond

Dozens of American Wigeon were swimming in the large pond, and making their funny little sounds.

Beautiful pond with all the American Wigeon in the distance

An American Robin hid in the bushes as I walked by, but couldn't hide from my camera lens as I peaked over the embankment.

American Robin in the bush

As I made my way back to my car, a group of Canada Geese flew into the soccer field and set-up for a game of soccer.

Soccer Geese (Canadian team)

Beautiful day at Gonzaga!

Be sure to check out my 2013 lists.  I'm up to 38 birds species for the year so far.

Come on SPRING!

Red-breasted, Red-headed, Red-spotted, Red-winged, Red-tailed

Yesterday was a dreary day, snowing most of the day. Many of the birds used the feeders as a sort of refuge from the snowy weather. The Red-breasted Nuthatches used the suet to shield themselves from the snow, and were just kind of frozen there. The Pine Siskin roosted for quite some time on the black sunflower seed feeder that is under the eaves and clear of any falling moisture on my, as I like to call it, bird balcony.

Another bird who I haven't seen come to the balcony feeder, spent a good deal of time there while it snowed.  I had only seen the red-headed male House Finch once this  year, perched on my bird tree.  He stared me down as I took a few photos of him through the glass slider door.

Handsome House Finch

A male Hairy Woodpecker with a red-spotted crown, showed up in the hood a couple of days ago, and was back again.  Up until now, there was only one female Downy Woodpecker that frequented the suet feeders just about daily. So it's kind of nice to see a male and a Hairy for some variety. In the following picture you can see the size difference between the male Hairy on the left and the female Downy on the right.  They look very similar except for the body and beak size.

When I get away from home, it seems much closer to spring when I'm out and about, away from my snowy wonderland here on the backside of the lake. Today on my way home, I took the back roads and was able to stop and take some snapshots of some birds that remind me of spring. Like the Robin Red-breast (American Robin), I've been seeing more and more while out. Today, there were a dozen or more of robins hanging out with a 'cloud' of blackbirds. A few of them were Starlings, but then there were plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds staking out their territory in the small ponds with spent cat tails. I was able to catch this guy as I pulled up under him with the sun roof open. He started zinging and whizzing and showing me how big he was with his wings and tail all fanned out.

Red-winged Blackbird

Another bird I like to stalk with the sun roof open is the Red-tailed hawk. I always count the Red-tails I encounter along the highway and today was no different (I counted 11), except that since I was on the back roads, I could actually pull over and snap some pics! This hawk was sunning itself in the last couple of minutes before sunset. I got one quick shot in before it flew off (and one really fuzzy one after it took flight).

Red-tailed Hawk

Oh, and how could I forget, the last bird sighting of the day was a highway hawk, but not my typical Red-tailed.  It was smaller, with a long barred tail. I swung back around and did a u-turn to go back and check it out.  The little hawk flew off before I could get a photo, but I did get a good look. After I got home, I consulted my trusty bird reference book and it was indeed a Sharp-shinned Hawk. A new bird for 2013 and for my life list!

All the RED birds featured in today's post...

Red-breasted Nuthatch

(Red-headed & Red-breasted) House Finch

(Red-spotted) Hairy Woodpecker

American Robin (Red-breast)

Red-winged Blackbird

Red-tailed Hawk

Duck, Duck, Goose at Riverfront Park

See something different about Bird Lady Blog? A new and improved format! I got a fancy new all-in-one computer with a 23" screen, and the old blog looked so puny and small. I didn't like it at all, so I updated to a new format.  The photos are a lot bigger and look much better on a dark background. Along with my new computer, I bought Photoshop Elements 11, an upgrade from my Elements 7.  These were the first set of pictures I downloaded, and I must say I'm loving the new version!  Hope you enjoy!

The other day I was in town and had some time to myself after meeting a friend for lunch. I decided to visit Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane to see what ducks and geese I might find along the river that runs through the park by the infamous Looff Carousel. I paid $2 to park across the street from the park for an hour. As soon as I entered the park, I could see quite the group of ducks and geese. I was able to get within a few feet of them and started snapping photos. They didn't seem to mind at all.

There was a lone Common Goldeneye in the group.  A handsome fellow indeed...

Common Goldeneye

About a dozen Mallards...

Mallards

Half a dozen American Wigeon...

American Wigeon

Three pairs of Canadian Geese.  Notice the water droplets?

Canadian Goose

This bad boy was smoking a cigarette!

A cigarette smoking Wigeon

There was one strange looking brown-headed duck that I had to research when I got home.  After looking through my pics and looking online, I decided that it is a Mallard of some sort. Anyone seen one like this before?

An interesting Brown-headed Mallard

It can be quite challenging to identify wild and domesticated ducks and geese because they can interbreed, hybridize, and mutate.  So even after researching online, consulting my bird books and coming to a semi-conclusion of what the following geese are, I am not confident on my I.D. The more I research, the more I question my guess and I have changed my mind several times.

I believe the goose in the back is a Greater White-fronted Goose. I also thought the front goose was a Greater White-fronted Goose. Then I read something that led me to believe the front goose was perhaps a hybrid Greylag Goose. I found that the White-fronted Geese and Greylag Geese look a lot alike, so I'm not really sure what these three are. If anyone has any input on this, please comment.  The middle one, looks like the front one, but honestly, I can't find any pics that look just like this one, but I'd have to venture that it is the same as the front goose. All I know is that I'm really confused on goose identities! Notice the wattle on the front goose?

Greater White-fronted Geese or Greylag Geese or hybrids?

The goose in the middle is a Chinese Goose, closely related to a Swan Goose and African Goose.

Swan Goose or Chinese Goose with Canadian Geese

This boy was so handsome. No questions about his identity!

Mallard Male

Look what a cute duck butt this guy has...

American Wigeon preening

Just when it seemed Spring was not far off, we got a fresh covering of snow to remind us that we are still in the middle of Winter. Back to hibernation for this chickadee!

~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

New Yard Birds ~ Pine Siskin, House Finch or Sparrow?

After weeks of seeing the same old yard birds (Red-breasted & White-breasted Nuthatches, Downy Woodpecker, and Black-capped Chickadees), it's nice to get some new birds in the yard. I posted recently about the Brown Creeper that was new to the bunch. A few days ago, a sweet little brown and white streaked bird joined the yard gang. My first thought was Pine Siskin, but it is really difficult to positively I.D. a nondescript small brown and white streaked bird.  In the birding community these are called Little Brown Jobs (LBJ's).  I researched the Pine Siskin on my iBird app and in my bird field guides.  Clues that led me to to the I.D. were the pointy beak and notched tail. I did not however, see any yellow on the wings or base of tail, but it is not always visible on a perched bird. I recall the first time I saw Pine Siskins at my feeder, it was a siskin in flight photo that cinched the I.D. for me. Without seeing the tell tale yellow, I could not be 100% on the identity of Pine Siskin.

Cut to the next day, when much to my surprise I see a spry little red-headed bird scoping out the balcony feeder.  I did a double-take... Yes, I DID just see a red-headed bird, a new bird in the yard!  Yippee!  Now this one I was sure on the identity, it was a male House Finch.  But now I was more confused about the previous day's bird. Could the Pine Siskin have been a female House Finch? I spent some time consulting the field guides, Googling images of  Pine Siskins and House Finches and concluded it was indeed a Pine Siskin. Later I spotted a little bird outside the window in the neighbors Lilac bush.  It too was a little brown job.  But this one, I knew right away was a Song Sparrow, by the brown spot on it's belly.  But without the spot, all three birds look very similar.

Check out the updated lists on the new Bird Lady's Lists page. Here is the cute little Pine Siskin with Mr. White, the resident White-breasted Nuthatch.

Pine Siskin & White-breasted Nuthatch
JPEG edit

Pine Siskin & White-breasted Nuthatch
RAW edit

Photography Talk

Not the greatest of pics. I'm still trying to perfect shooting from behind the sliding glass door, with the tripod setup. It creates a less-than-ideal back lighting situation, and I just haven't got the settings down.  I did some reading online and in my camera manual and set my camera for spot metering, which should help when the background is brighter than the subject like it is in my balcony feeder setup. I will test it out tomorrow.

For the above pic, I was shooting in Shutter Priority mode with the shutter speed @ 1/256, f/6.5 This is an edit of the RAW photo, with some post processing done in Photoshop Elements 7. Honestly, I have been trying to do more of the RAW editing, but I'm not really happy with the results. Obviously, I still have lots to learn!

~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

Exciting Sighting and a Few Views

Exciting Sighting... I like how that sounds... Ex-CIT-ing SIGHT-ing!  And by a Few Views, I mean Bird Lady Blog has surpassed 2500 page views!

Exciting Sighting

It started out as another trip to town and back with the family.  I usually drive because I get car sick easily when I don't. I was counting my Red-tailed Hawks along the highway like I always do. My Bird Lady Assistant (the husband) was not cooperating with me that day. He didn't want to press the record button on my voice memo app on my iPhone when I would see a bird so I could record the location and time. Something about him wanting the family to live.  You see the family thinks I should watch the road while I am driving, and I do, but I just can't help seeing the birds around me, even when I'm driving.  (Days later I listened to my recordings and hear his whole conversation about this because he forgot to turn the record button off.) We did our errands in town and then headed back to the lake, seeing along the way a couple of crows, over a dozen blackbirds, an American Kestrel, several pigeons, a gull, and 9 Red-tailed Hawks!  Hard to identify some of them when your driving and attempting to preserve the lives of your family riding in the car.

When we are almost home, off of the highway, not quite to our private road, I see something alongside the road. I blink a couple of times, slow down the car and could not believe what I was seeing!  A couple of feet from our car, there was a hawk feasting on a dead turkey.  We had seen the dead turkey along side the road a couple of days ago. Bird Lady Assistant (BLA) and my son Beau had the best view being on the passenger side of the car and later reported that the hawk was staring us down with a mad look on it's face because we were interrupting his meal. No sooner had I realized what I was seeing, the hawk flew up in the trees.  Of course I had to get out of the car so I could see what was going on. I assumed it was a Red-tailed seeing what I thought was some rustiness of a tail and a very dark back.  It was one big-ass hawk!  The turkey was well... dead, and there were feathers scattered about, and the poor thing's head and neck had been stripped and eaten and was just a thin resemblance of what it had been. BLA wanted to get going home, and there was a car behind us, so I had to leave, without even getting a picture.  I wanted to go back, but we had groceries to unload and it was almost getting dark.  Of course I can't post a story without some pictures, so I went back... a couple of days later, and the entire carcus had been picked clean.  I did take a pic, but it's a bit disgusting.  If you really want to see it, click on the 'cute' turkey pic to be taken to the 'disgusting' eaten turkey pic.  If you're squeamish, don't click on the photo below. 

Another sighting that was new to the yard this week, was a Brown Creeper joining the flock of winter feeders at the suet. While I was adding it to my lists, I decided to start a page on the blog for my lists. You will find it under the scrolling picture banner at the top of the page right after the Photo Gallery link. It's called Bird Lady's Lists.  This is where I will keep my updated yard list, 2013 Big Year list, and my life list.  One of my goals of the year is to get to 100 birds on my life list!  I'm sitting about 94 right now.  I think 6 new birds is do-able, don't you?

Brown Creeper

Also new on my 2013 Big Year list this week is the American Robin. These birds remind me of spring and with the news today that Punxsutawney Phil, the ground hog did NOT see his shadow today could mean an early spring!  I saw about 25 robins roosting in a tree, when I was trying to identify some blackbirds, who ended up being European Starlings. So I added both to the 2013 list. I don't particularly care for the starlings, but the robins, are such great birds.  I didn't get decent photos of the robins, since they were quite far away.  I barely could make them out with the 30x zoom lens and then magnified again on the computer.  They blended so well into the trees. I did discover that I really should not use the binoculars while out and about birding and driving around in the car. I have a real problem with motion sickness and migraines, and looking through the binoculars for more than a few seconds makes my eyes twist and gives me a horrible headache.  Nix the plan to get binoculars for the car. The photos I am sharing today are some of my past favorite robin eating berries pics that I've taken.

American Robin

 

A Few Views

This has been an exciting couple of weeks, participating in the Grow Your Blog party. Bird Lady Blog started with 6 followers, and as of today, has 46 followers!  I'm not sure about the exact view count before the party, but I'm happy to say we've got over 2500 views now!  I know we have about tripled our page views in about 2 months.  I have really enjoyed visiting all sorts of interesting blogs and look forward to getting to know my new followers better.