Birds from Our Windows

Townsend's warbler

The birds are celebrating Thanksgiving, too. Two Townsend's warblers came for suet today, allowing me to get my first pictures of them. These warblers winter along the coast and in the valleys of western Oregon. -EO

Black phoebe

Lately, this phoebe has been coming around looking for bugs in the eaves. It makes a lap of the house, perching here and there and then making fluttering flights upward to get spiders. Today he stopped to rest for a moment in the mimosa and I was able to get a picture before the fluttering laps began again. -EO

...

White-tailed kite

A couple of weeks ago, coming back from the river, mom and I spotted a white-tailed kite hunting. It was hovering in midair over the meadow, a characteristic behavior, looking for mice and such. Today, coming back from the river, there was the kite again. This time, it wheeled and careened in the air, screeching and being impressive for some time. Then it came to rest in a tree top, where it could survey the surrounding fields for food. -EO

...

Pacific wren

Coming back from the river, I practically tripped over this wren. It was at eye level, about 4 feet away, in the blackberries. It wasn't at all afraid of me. In fact, it was curious. It looked at me from lots of angles while I took lots of pictures.  We made friends. Then it casually hopped deeper into the brush. Wrens are elusive -- so that made this all the more special. -EO

...

...

...

 

Golden-crowned kinglet

I thought I was taking bad pictures of bushtits. That's what happened the last time I photographed tiny busy birds in this particular tree right by the river. So I didn't try very hard. Who needs more unfocussed pictures of tits? But it turns out they weren't bushtits. They were golden-crowned kinglets - - a new find for me. Moral of the story: Always take the picture. -EO

...

...

American wigeons

There is a spot on the river that Mom and I like to hike to. Whenever we go, we see something new. Today, when I came through the brush and spotted the water, there was a flock of American wigeons floating along upstream ever so peacefully. Then they spotted me and got out of there. -EO

...

...

Brown creeper

Brown creepers are hard to spot. They stay close to the trunk, blend in with bark, and move slowly up trees. Today I happened across two of them on two different trees. -EO

Spotted towhee

These are hard to photograph because of their black heads. This one posed just right in the light. -EO

Varied thrush

These are shy and hard to spot. They are basically very special, rare robins of the Pacific Northwest forest. This handsome male was pecking around in the back yard this afternoon. He is my first. -EO

The winter of his discontent

This ruby-crowned kinglet wanted to get to the peanuts. But a black-capped chickadee was in his way. So he busted out his ruby crown and told the chickadee to step off. It worked. -EO

...

...