It's been a brutal week here in the northwest.  The rain has been relentless, except of course when it's been snowing.  But that's not quite enough to keep me indoors.  Especially when I got tapped Tuesday morning for a top secret owl hunt with Rhett the owl whisperer!

It was completely dry at my house so I was surprised on my drive to Reed Canyon to find snow and more snow.  I had never been to the canyon (which is in SE Portland on the Reed College campus) but now I will be disappointed to go back and not find it like this... a winter wonderland:


The owl we were hunting was unfortunately not where it was supposed to be.  But who cares?  It was a beautiful snowy morning and there were other birds to be had!  Like this most random lone female Barrow's Goldeneye in one of the ponds...


Some more snowy birds...


The best bird for me that morning was a Hutton's Vireo mixing with a flock of Bushtits and chickadees...


So this owl was the second owl I failed to find this week, starting with the Murder Barn Owl on Sunday.  I did not quit there, I went for a trifecta yesterday with a recently reported Barred Owl at Mount Tabor Park.  Adrian Hinkle was kind enough to share directions to where it had been roosting in view of one of the trails and I set out in the rain to find it.

But I didn't.  I found a Red-breasted Sapsucker...


And some Cedar Waxwings and robins feasting on hawthorn berries...


Owls shmowls. 

Oh well, this is the "worst" part of the year here.  It never really gets light out and the rain can make you feel a bit crazy... But when the holidays end things get better.   If the world doesn't end of course.  Good times!!

Yep, it must be spring.  Our weather is all over the place and yesterday evening we even had a thunderstorm, something that many of us transplants dearly miss in the northwest.   They are so rare here that I didn't even realize what was happening during the first rumble (and went flying off the couch thinking a plane was about to crash on my roof).  Birding has been interesting- from cold and wet to hot and sunny.   Here's some recent stuff...

From Kelley Point Park on Thursday morning...

Spotted Towhee

 Young robin


Flycatcher... yep...


Wilson's Warbler


Warbling Vireo


Another young robin


Stick dog


I don't know what this next plant is called but I love it...


 From Force Lake also Thursday morning...

Mallard family
 
 Anna's Hummingbird


Common Yellowthroat

From Oaks Bottom yesterday afternoon...

Barn Swallow

The cotton in the sky was kind of hypnotizing...


Check out this enormous turtle:


I swear it's the biggest one I've ever seen in Portland.  I didn't have too much luck with birds at Oaks Bottom but it's a really nice place to wander around... Always good for a heron:


And I wouldn't be Flycatcher Jen if I didn't scrounge up at least one mystery bird... who unfortunately turned his head the second I got focused on him (and then flew away).



Eh?  The meadow at the end of the trail had tons of western box elder bugs, many of which liked landing on my arms. 


And that's about it for the last few days... Hope to get out somewhere more exciting this weekend.  Good times!!

After calling my mom this morning I headed out to do some birding- the most I've done since getting back to town.  I still have tons more birds from my trip to share, but today I had the perfect experience to post about for Mother's Day.  I visited Whitaker Ponds, Force Lake, and Vanport Wetlands, and saw a good number of Mallards and their ducklings.  At Force Lake this mama had five kids:


At nearby Vanport the only mama I saw had just one duckling.  Driving away from Force Lake right by the Expo Center, something caught my eye on the side of the road.  I stopped and looked back and there sitting in the road was a silly little duckling.  The curb was too high for it to get over so it was somewhat trapped.


I will admit that I am not sure what I did was right, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.  I put my hazards on and decided to try to catch it.  It took a few minutes with cars spooking it and me spooking it.. But finally I caught him.


I named him Ted and stood there holding him wondering what I should do next.  The nearest water was in Vanport, but it's surrounded by a chain-link fence.  I wasn't sure that shoving Ted through the fence would help him survive.   I remembered the ducklings at Force Lake, which was also pretty close, and so drove back over clutching Ted in my hand.

I did some one-handed googling and learned that if the Force Lake duck mama was in fact Ted's mama, then she would probably respond to his peeping and come get him.  So I waded through the tall grass and placed him beside the water in a spot where I could see the mama.

Then I waited.  At first mama did not get up (she was sunbathing), but after a few minutes I saw the family hop in the lake and start swimming towards Ted.


I was stoked!  Mama was coming for Ted.  I peeked over the stone wall and saw Ted happily join the other ducklings.  Unfortunately then I realized that Ted was a bit younger than the others, and obviously not a blood relative.


Things seemed okay at first despite his obvious differences.  But then mama started to catch on, and started poking at Ted.  At one point she even seemed to submerge him in the lake.  Oh dear...


I started to stress out that she was going to murder him in front of me, but that didn't happen.  She poked him some more and he kept coming back.  The other ducklings seemed fine with having him around and eventually they all just swam off together.


So I am not sure what will happen with Ted and his new adopted mother and siblings.  I am hoping for the best, but realize that things might not end well for him.  I plan to go back later this afternoon to check on them so I'll hopefully have an update.  Interesting times!

I have made my way out of the amazing place that is southeastern Arizona.  I have survived to tell the tale.  Last night I arrived in Las Cruces, New Mexico in time to see my friends' band on tour from Portland.  Despite staying up fairly late, I still woke up at 5:30 this morning and figured I should try to knock out a blog before I begin the long drive to San Antonio.

On Sunday morning I had to pick up my friend Sunni at the Phoenix airport at 8:00 and had asked Laurence of Butlers, Birds and Things for suggestions for some pre-airport birding.  He was extremely helpful and from his long list I chose Encanto Park, a city park with many palm trees, pathways, and more palm trees.  It almost reminded me of Kapiolani Park in Waikiki.


There were tons of domestic ducks and geese in addition to a lone Canada Goose and lots of Mallards and their ducklings...


There was a single cormorant hanging around that I assume is a Double-crested, though its bill looks kind of small (perhaps the angle of the photo)...


There was no shortage of Great-tailed Grackles in the park (or anywhere else I've been since, including outside my motel window right now)...



There were tons of White-winged and Eurasian Collared-Doves around...


At this park I found my first of many Gila Woodpeckers, my first Arizona lifer!



Flying around one section of the park was a pair of Rosy-faced Lovebirds, which I had never even heard of until Laurence mentioned them...


Adorable.  After an hour at the park I had to get going to the airport, but it was a great place to walk the dogs around and see some local birds.  From the airport we headed south towards Tucson with a stop off near Picacho Peak to look for Crested Caracaras.  Success!!!


The best part was that shortly after finding the bird, he flew right by us and into the distance... We got great looks!


The dusty back roads we were driving were also good for kingbirds...


This photo now has me believing that kingbirds are actually close relatives of the dolphin.  On a telephone pole nearby was my first Harris's Hawk!


And that will be all for this post.  Stay tuned for many many more lifers and otherwise rad desert birds!

I've been using eBird a lot lately- still trying get all my old bird lists entered, but also exploring the rest of the site.  I signed up for daily alerts informing me what birds I have not yet seen this year in my county that others have seen (the alerts include when and where the birds were seen).  I don't county list or anything like that but I do like the inspiration to bird closer to home.  So yesterday I headed out to Eagle Creek to look for American Dippers. 


Success!  I found two along the creek.  I walked the dogs around for awhile, checking out the area.  A couple of Common Mergansers came swimming by at one point...



In a tree near the restrooms were three Red-breasted Sapsuckers, rather close together.


I've never seen three in one tree.  There was also a chipmunk in the area, which kept the dogs entertained...


We walked over to the nearby fish hatchery and watched a crow snatch a little fishy thing out of one of the ponds.  The netting above the ponds seemed to frustrate him as he made many attempts to fly away.  I was worried for a second, but he finally squeezed through a spot and flew off with his prize.


Nearby at the mouth of the creek is Eagle Creek Overlook.  There's a trail that leads to the top of a hill with views of the Columbia River and the Bonneville Dam.


There were lots of birds at the top including at Pileated Woodpecker.  I forced the dogs to pose on one of the stone walls along the trail.


This morning I rode my bike out to Whitaker Ponds in hopes of adding some birds to my motorless list.  Failed on that account, but saw lots of great birds anyhow.  First off, ducks in trees!


Not just Wood Ducks either- there was a Mallard up in a tree too..


I find ducks in trees pretty amusing.  I startled a couple of Hooded Mergansers out of a drainage pipe, and they seemed to swim away into the, uh, sunrise...


The best part of my visit to the park was finally finding the owl nest.  I spotted two lumps in trees from across the pond and realized they were two owlets!  I made my way over to the area and found those two owlets, plus mom on the nest with a third owlet.  Score.


This owl appears to be the oldest of the three:


This next one is probably the middle child:


So awesome!!  Good times!