Koll Center Wetlands

The other day while running some errands I decided to stop at Koll Center Wetlands. It's a neat little place I used to frequently bird-watch, set right in the middle of a business park in suburban Beaverton:

There's a great blue heron rookery there, where once I saw how brutal sibling rivalry can be as one chick had thrown another out of the nest. It's a great place to see all kinds of waterfowl and any shorebirds that may be passing through, and there's a little wooded area nearby to pick up a whole other variety of species as well. On this particular afternoon it was fairly quiet, but the lighting was beautiful:

Most of the 13 species I saw were clustered at one end of the lake, unfortunately making them back-lit for me - not great for photographs. Here's a little pied-billed grebe:

While no species was particularly abundant, the variety in one spot was pretty cool to see. How many different species do you see in the photo below, and what are they? Click to see a larger version.

Oregon Wine Country

We finally got some nice weather over the end of the holiday weekend, so last Sunday was a beautiful day to drive out to parts of rural Oregon and visit several of the small, local wineries that were open for the weekend. It was sunny, calm, and not even very chilly, so it was perfect for pulling out the camera and capturing some scenic shots of Oregon wine country.

A gravel road through one of the vineyards

A few oak trees (I think?) punctuated the otherwise flat landscape, standing out among the rolling hills. Here a couple of trees frame one of the barns at a winery.

One of my new lenses starts at 18mm, giving me a chance to frame some wider landscape shots like this one

By the time we drove home, the sun was setting and the moon was rising

We had to stop the car so I could try and capture this view of Mt. Hood beyond the road leading down from Bald Peak into the rural valley. Click on the picture to see a larger view showing the mountain more clearly.

I've never really figured out the tricks of photographing mountains in the distance....they often appear very washed out. Anyone have any tips?

Waterfowl at Westmoreland Park

With the nicer weather yesterday, I went back to Westmoreland City Park in hopes of getting some nicer photos of the red phalarope. Unfortunately the phalarope had moved on (I'm glad I went in the rain and saw it before it left!), but there were lots of other waterfowl hanging out on the two ponds there. Since I had my camera in hand anyway, I decided to walk around the two ponds and take some shots.

First is a female American wigeon who was flapping her wings after bathing:

Here's a male American wigeon:

Some of the Canada geese were being fed, which is probably why they were much more approachable than the other species. I took advantage of this to try some close-ups. While I got some neat head shots, this full-frame picture turned out the prettiest:

There were only two lesser scaup that I could see, but the male took one pass close to the shoreline:

Finally, I've tried several times in the San Juans to get a nice picture of a bufflehead, but haven't had too much luck. I had a little more luck yesterday. There were a few of them hanging out together on the pond, and with the sun peaking through the clouds you can really see the iridescent feathers on the head of this male:

I'm thankful for....A new life bird!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow American blog readers out there! I was going to list a few things in the natural world that I'm especially thankful for today, but an unexpected sighting takes the cake today as I got a new life bird!

This guy must have gotten blown off course during some of the recent wind storms, because he/she is supposed to be out in the ocean but instead has been hanging out here in a city park. It's a red phalarope! (Same as the grey phalarope for those of you in Europe.)

Red phalaropes breed north of the Arctic circle and migrate offshore, so they are the least often encountered of the three North American phalaropes. They are late migrators with many of them heading south in November, going as far as beyond the equator. Funny, there's no red on it at all this time of year, but you can tell them from other phalaropes in winter plumage (here are some red-necked phalaropes from a few months ago) due to its all gray back with no streaks and stouter bill.

Red phalaropes are known for being fairly approachable and this one is no exception, because some fellow birders have reported getting to within a couple feet of it in recent days. No such luck for me today, because despite the rain a lot of other folks were out enjoying the park and it was a bit skittish of the edges of the pond. I may have to try again in nicer weather if it sticks around.

Finally, this mallard was just too pretty not to share as well:

Squirrels - Shot with a new camera!

A few days ago I bought myself a new camera and lens set up (!!!) and I've been starting to get used to my new equipment. After using my last camera set up for five years, I had started to notice some things slowing down. The lenses especially are a major upgrade for me in quality so I look forward to really seeing what they could do. I needed a subject to shoot while I played around and I found some obliging red fox squirrels at a neighborhood park. I'm sure I'll be posting more as I continue to experiment with the new camera, but for now enjoy these photos....

Windy and Wild Oregon COASST Survey

Yesterday I went to the Oregon coast with my dad to conduct a beached bird survey. COASST, or the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, is a citizen science program where people monitor beaches and report all seabird strandings. I've been doing surveys on a beach in the San Juans, and while I've had some cool sigthings, I haven't ever actually found a dead bird there. I also got my dad interested in the program, though when I did a survey with him we didn't find any birds either. More birds tend to wash up on the outer coast than in the interior waters like where the San Juan Islands are, often in the fall. My dad has found a total of seven birds on his recent surveys, so when I joined him yesterday I thought chances were good that I might find my first stranded seabird. Little did I know what I was getting into....(a couple of these photos aren't for the faint of heart if you don't like seeing dead things)

The weather has been fairly stormy and very unpredictable lately, and yesterday was no exception. On the drive through the beach we had nearly every kind of weather imaginable - sun, clouds, rain, hail, and snow. Luckily when we arrived at the beach the sun was shining again, though it was very windy. Here you can see the dry, lighter colored sand blowing over the wet, darker surface of the beach:

We didn't have to walk far before we found our first bird of the day: a northern fulmar. When we find a bird we measure its beak, wing chord, and tarsus on its foot. We also assess its overall condition, note where it was found on the beach, and if it is associated with any oil or entanglements. The bird is then tagged and photographed.

By the time we finished recording the required data for this fulmar, we could see a squall moving in. We half-ran back to the parking lot, getting caught in the first of the rain before reaching the shelter of the car. Luckily it only lasted about 15 minutes before the clouds moved on. Here you can see the squall moving to the left, and the nicer weather returning on the right:

Luckily we stayed dry after that, because we had a lot of work ahead of us. Not far after where we found the first northern fulmar, I spotted a western gull entangled in some wrack. Here's my dad measuring the beak:

I think it was then that we realized there could be a lot of birds on our beach that day. In the end, we found a whopping ELEVEN birds: five northern fulmars, two brown pelicans, one western gull, one western grebe, and an unidentifiable wing that may have been from another fulmar. I think one reason there were so many birds is because of the stormy weather we've been having, which both takes the lives of some weaker birds and causes bigger waves to wash them up on shore.

If you're a little bit grossed out by some of these photos, I don't blame you. I almost am too, looking at the photos. I'm not the kind of person you would expect to spend time looking at or handling dead animals, but I have to admit in the field it is actually pretty fascinating. A bit of the naturalists' curiosity takes over when you get a chance to examine some of these animals up close. Take this brown pelican:

I never would have imagined that I could say something dead was beautiful, but this pelican was pretty close. First of all, check out this wing-span!

Brown pelicans have wing spans of 6-8 feet, and I'd have to say this guy was towards the larger end of that spectrum. Just seeing the sheer size of the bird was amazing, but being that close gives you a chance to notice other details as well, like this hook on the end of its beak:

Or how about these beautiful feathers:

We weren't the only ones out on the beach yesterday afternoon, either. Check out this guy, who nabbed himself a live pelican!

It turns out it had an injury and he was taking it to a wildlife rehab center. He only stopped briefly for a quick photo because he said the bird was pretty heavy (they can be upwards of ten pounds). He said it was the second one he had gotten that day, and we saw a third injured juvenile later on. While its sad to see dead and injured brown pelicans on the beach, we did actually see several thousand live pelicans while we were out there too. The brown pelican was listed as endangered mostly due to issues arising from DDT, but they were actually delisted just ten days ago due the amazing recovery they've made!

Above is the western grebe we found right at the boundary of our survey area. It provides another example of some of the cool observations you can make by seeing a bird like that up close. Grebes actually have lobed feet, which is something I didn't know until I took the COASST training. The lobed toes look very bizarre to me:

The northern fulmars also gave us a chance to see why they're in the tubenose family. I've seen fulmars on a couple of occasions before, but never close enough to really see the tubular nasal passage on top of the bill. This part of their anatomy has several functions, including being an olfactory organ they use to smell prey at sea. It's also the site of a gland where they excrete salt, since when they spend their whole lives at sea they actually drink salt water:

It wasn't just birds we found on the beach, either. These last two I want your help identifying. First is this pirhana-like fish. Anyone know what it might be?

Second is this huge light bulb. Any ideas as to what it may have been used for?

You just never know what you're going to find when you walk on the beach. It took us three hours to complete our survey, but we learned a lot, saw even more, and got to participate in a cool citizen science project.

Sauvie Island in November

About 10 miles outside of Portland near the junction of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers is Sauvie Island, a rural 26,000 acres including a large wildlife refuge. Its one of the first places I remember my dad taking me birding when I was little, and is still one of my favorite spots for finding overwintering waterfowl.

Much of the wildlife refuge is closed to bird-watchers and open to hunters from November-April, but there is still a pretty driving tour around the island with several places where you can stop and overlook ponds and fields. The weather here has been very blustery and gray, so it wasn't a bad day to bird mostly from the car anyway.

The first stop I made was to look at a flock of Canada geese with some snow geese mixed in. There are many different races of Canada geese, and I'm no expert at telling them apart, but it was obvious that several different sub-species were present just by the range in their size and coloration. (Hmmm....maybe a future blog post can focus on this?) Later on, I also heard some cackling geese - they used to be the smallest race of Canada geese but have since been designated their own species.

This photo is of a cedar waxwing who was part of a large flock feeding on the fruits in a patch of leafless trees and scrub. I think this one is eating a rosehip. I'm kind of surprised to find waxwings here in the winter. Even though the Pacific Northwest is part of their year-round range according to maps on my field guides, I just don't recall seeing them here in the winter and associate them mostly with the peak of summer. The picture was nearly all black and white anyway, so turning it to grayscale just enhanced the contrast, really capturing the feeling of the day:

One of the main birds I associate with Sauvie Island is the sandhill crane which likes to stopover on the farmlands on both its fall and spring migrations. I was hoping to get some photos, but I only saw one small flock way off in the distance. When I was stopped to view them, however, I was startled by several killdeer that were scurrying about in the tilled field much closer to the car. They blended in so well I didn't notice them until my binos happened to pan over them! Look at that camouflage:

Raptors were the other highlight of the day, since they seemed to be everywhere. There was one pair of bald eagles in a field, and when the took flight one of them was trailing a big mass of vegetation. I saw four separate pairs of American kestrels, at least as many red-tailed hawks, and both male and female Northern harriers. There were several osprey nest, but none of them occupied, and no owls today either, which would have been a nice find.

In a little over an hour, I turned up a respectable 24 species. It was nice to get out and about a little bit and revisit one of my favorite local birding spots, but I can't wait until we get some sunshine and its nicer weather for both hiking and photography!