On October 4, I got a new yard bird, the Rufous Hummingbird. The individual stayed for a few days but is now on its way south, presumably.
New Birds for 2018: 0
2018 Year-to-Date Talley: 244
Tag oregonbigyear2018
October 1, 2018
Today, my nephew turned 1 and one Palm Warbler showed up at the OSU campus in Corvallis. Common in the east, the Palm Warbler, at least the “western” variety, has a small population in southern Oregon near the coast. The western variety is also less yellow and more white than the eastern “yellow” variety. Assuming this little guy was heading south and was pit stopping at OSU for a snack.
Palm Warblers are unique in that they tend to hang near the ground (whereas most other warblers are found higher up in trees). Palm Warblers also bob (wag) their tail a lot.
I met my friend Lindsey to see the Palm Warbler (who graciously stuck around until I was finished work) and to celebrate with beer and pizza.
New Birds for 2018: 1
2018 Year-to-Date Talley: 244
September 29, 2018
Seeing more than 300 bird species in Oregon in a calendar year is really only feasible if the birder is willing to go on a pelagic birding tour.
Pelagic = related to the open sea.
Because my target was 300 bird species, earlier this year I signed up for an 8-hour pelagic tour that was part of the Oregon Birding Association’s AGM in Garibaldi, Oregon.
I have a strong history of motion sickness, but Dramamine usually does the trick. Yes, it makes me drowsy, affects my breathing and heart rate, and generally gives me a case of the pending malaise, but I can usually power through it if I’m occupied.
Well occupied I was! For the first three hours of the tour, we birded and birded, and as we got further out to sea, the waves got bigger and bigger. I felt like I was on a roller coaster, but it was such fun. So many birds, and countable looks at Black-footed Albatross, Northern Fulmar, Pink-footed Shearwater, Sooty Shearwater, Red Phalarope, Pomarine Jaeger, Rhinoceros Auklet, and Mew Gull. I remember thinking at one point that I would most certainly do many other pelagic tours because, great heavens, wasn’t this fun?!
UNTIL IT WAS NOT FUN ANYMORE. Until the waves shot a strong middle finger to the Dramamine, and the feeling of death came on strong. From that point, I either forced myself to stay outside staring with great intent at the horizon (and holding on for dear life as the boat went up and down several feet) or dashing into the cabin and rapidly putting my head down on the table and holding onto a pole so I wouldn’t get thrown about. This went on for hours.
One hour before the tour ended, as we were heading back to shore, the surf became calm, and my sickness passed. I felt alive again and it felt incredible to surface onto the deck, use words out loud, and look at other things but the horizon.
Looking back, I may sign up for another pelagic tour, but not for 8 hours. Maybe 5. Maybe.
New Birds for 2018: 8
2018 Year-to-Date Talley: 243
June 15, 2018
When you are about to start your weekend with a very deserving happy hour, but you find out a Common Loon has been spotted at the “local” sewage ponds, you trade beers for birds and you hit the road.
I have not seen a Common Loon since I lived in Ontario, Canada, so I was pretty excited to see this old friend. Common Loons are not typically this far south right now, so this was a rare chance for me to see one and add it to my 2018 Oregon list.
Common Loons are gorgeous. I was counting on the bird to be easy to find considering the ponds are pretty empty (bird life) at this time of the year. The eBird posts also mentioned that the loon was in the south pond.
Much like my Pacific Golden-Plover luck, I saw the loon almost immediately. We should have brought some beer with us, though I’m sure the City of Philomath frowns upon people partying at their sewage ponds.
And … the Common Loon is BIRD #200!!
One species, bird #200. This is how it’s going to be for the rest of the year. One new bird here, two new bird there. Any pelagic tours I take will yield a small handful, but this big year has formally shifted to deliberation and strategy.
Common Loon; Philomath Sewage Ponds; June 15, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt.
Common Loon; Philomath Sewage Ponds; June 15, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt.
Philomath Sewage Ponds; June 15, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt.
January 28, 2018
When not surprisingly showing up along the Oregon coast, the Steller’s Eider, a wee sea duck, spends its time much further north, breeding in freshwater tundra ponds and spending its non-breeding hours in nearshore, shallow marine waters. Their worldwide range is coastal Alaska, northern Russia, and northeastern Europe. Sadly, the species is in decline, and the Steller’s Eider is federally listed as threatened.
From the Alaska Department of Fish and Game[1]:
Almost all Steller’s eiders nest in northeastern Siberia, with less than 1% of the population breeding in North America … In the winter, most of the world’s Steller’s eiders are found in the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands.
This winter 2018, a female Steller’s Eider showed up in Seaside Cove, Oregon, in nearshore waters. This is the fourth time in birding-recorded history[2] that this species has shown up in Oregon. Looking back at my rarebird emails, Ms. Eider was first recorded at Seaside this year on or near January 13, 2018. She has been sticking around this area for weeks now and has been very cooperative for birders. Few if any days have gone by since January 13 where the eider doesn’t show up on the daily rare birds reports.
For various reasons, I did not get out to see Ms. Eider until this past weekend. She was incredibly cooperative for us, and even flew closer to shore to provide me with a spectacular view. She also did not mind the surfers who swam quite close to her. With just my binoculars, I could see her chunky bill and the white borders or her speculum. We spent a little more than 1 hour here at Seaside Cove, appreciating this rare sighting and catching some more species. How on earth did she end up down here? Would she find her way back to Alaska? I felt a bit sad while I watched this little brown nugget of a duck and pondered her fate.
Seaside Cove Highlights:
Steller’s Eider* (lifer!)
Harlequin Duck* (lifer!)
Surf Scoter*
Horned Grebe*
Pelagic Cormorant* (lifer!)
Double-crested Cormorant
Herring Gull*
Other highlights from these past two weeks include Golden-crowned Sparrows* at Riverside Park in Salem, Oregon, and a Mute Swan* (likely a domestic escapee; counting it for now) in the Willamette Slough at Minto-Brown Island Park in Salem, Oregon.
Steller’s Eider; Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Surfers; Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Surf Scoters; Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Pelagic Cormorant; Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Herring Gull; Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Harlequin Ducks; Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Horned Grebe (with a fish!); Seaside Cove, Oregon; January 28, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Mute Swan; Minto-Brown Island Park; Salem, Oregon; January 15, 2019; photograph by Linda Burfitt
*New Birds for 2018: 8
2018 Year-to-Date Talley: 76
[1] Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 2018. Steller’s Eider (Polysticta stelleri). Species Profile. Available at: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=stellerseider.main. Accessed January 29, 2018.
[2] Oregon Birding Association. 2017. The Records of the Oregon Birds Records Committee. Available at: http://orbirds.org/recordsdec2017.pdf. Accessed January 29, 2018.
January 13, 2018
One of the reasons why I’ve always loved birding is that it essentially brings me to some of my favourite places, namely forests and wetlands. This is also a fair assumption by folks who find out you’re a birder:
birder = a person who spends time outdoors in beautiful, natural places looking for birds
While this is often the case, on Saturday, January 13, I headed out to one of my area’s seriously birdy Hot Spots: the Philomath Sewage Ponds.
The Philomath Sewage Ponds are just south of the town of Philomath. They comprise three lagoon cells (i.e., ponds). After passing through the facility’s headworks, raw sewage is stored in these three ponds, which are designed to kick-off the treatment of raw sewage by “storage under conditions that favor natural biological treatment and accompanying bacterial reduction.”1 The water from these ponds is treated further when it is eventually pumped to what’s called a chlorine contact chamber. Eventually it is either discharged to the Mary’s River or is used for irrigation, depending on the season.
Anyway, these sewage ponds did not let me down. I found myself going from pond to pond, as if I were opening up Christmas gifts of birds to myself. After feeling pretty comfortable with the ponds, I moved onto the adjacent shrubby-wooded area to the south of the ponds where I saw a new-to-2018 species and lifer, a Black Phoebe.
Breaking the rest down for you here:
Northern Shoveler
Green-winged Teal
Ring-necked Duck
*Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Ruddy Duck
Red-tailed Hawk
Bald Eagle
American Kestrel
*Black Phoebe (lifer!)
American Crow
European Starling
Dark-eyed Junco
*Savannah Sparrow
Black Pheobe; Philomath Sewage Ponds; January 13, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Black Pheobe; Philomath Sewage Ponds; January 13, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Northern Shoveler; Philomath Sewage Ponds; January 13, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Northern Shovelers; Philomath Sewage Ponds; January 13, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Red-tailed Hawk; Philomath Sewage Ponds; January 13, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Savannah Sparrow; Philomath Sewage Ponds; January 13, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
- American Kestrel; Philomath Sewage Ponds; January 13, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
*New Birds for 2018: 3 species
2018 Year-to-Date Talley: 60 species (this includes two additional 2018 species I saw earlier in the week on January 10—*Gadwall and *Green Heron—both of which were at the Koll Center Wetlands Park near my eye doctor in Beaverton, Oregon. I stopped there for a few minutes before I went back to work).
- Westech Engineering, Inc. 2017. Wastewater System Facilities Plan. Philomath, Oregon. Available at: http://www.ci.philomath.or.us/vertical/sites/%7B2CFF016E-1592-4DB3-9E2B-444FA3EFC736%7D/uploads/PhilomathFacilitiesPlanV3.pdf
January 4–5, 2018
I saw a Ruddy Duck today!
I wasn’t even going to venture out today, because I wanted to give my “new” eyes some rest, and because it was pouring rain this morning. I was going to chalk it up as another feeder-yard day and leave it at that.
But, the sun came out, so I hastily grabbed all of my birding paraphernalia and set off to Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is approx. 2,800 acres and comprises cropland; wooded swamps; large, ephemeral wetlands; and various forms of edge habitat in between. The refuge was established in 1965 to provide optimal wintering habitat for the “dusky” Canada goose, which is a subspecies of the Canada Goose that nests only in the Willamette Valley.
I focused my birding today in the wetland areas. My list is as follows, followed by some photographs.
American Coot*
American Crow
American Wigeon*
Belted Kingfisher*
Bewick’s Wren*
Black-capped Chickadee
Canada Goose
Great Blue Heron
Green-winged Teal*
Mallard
Northern Flicker*
Northern Pintail*
Northern Shoveler*
Ring-Necked Duck
Ruddy Duck*
Tundra Swan*
Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge; January 5, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Bufflehead (male) and the backside of an American Wigeon (male); Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge: January 5, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Mallard and American Wigeon; Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge; January 8, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Tundra Swans (and a coot); Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge; January 5, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
And, my feeder list from today and yesterday:
American Goldfinch
Bewick’s Wren*
Brown Creeper*
Dark-eyed Junco
Lesser Goldfinch*
Red-Breasted Nuthatch*
Song Sparrow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Western Scrub-Jay
Dark-Eyed Junco; Salem, Oregon; January 5, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
Lesser Goldfinches; Salem, Oregon; January 5, 2018; photograph by Linda Burfitt
And on that note, I need to stop staring at this screen and rest my eyes for the rest of the evening. Tally below.
*New Birds for 2018: 14 species
2018 Year-to-Date Talley: 41 species
Sauntering Birder 