Rhinoceros Auklet

My wife and I are vacationing in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada this week. On our way across the Juan De Fuca Strait from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, I took advantage of the opportunity and took pictures of whatever birds we happened to pass during the trip.

There many Gulls of course; mostly Glaucous-winged and Heermann's. Also, hundreds of Common Murres in both breeding, non-breeding and transitional plumage.
Among all those birds I got a few pictures of a couple of Rhinoceros Auklets. A new life bird for me!

We also got lucky and saw a whale off in the distance.

Brewer's Blackbird - Panting

I remember thinking it wasn't that hot of day when I saw these Brewer's Blackbirds panting along the short of Fernhill Lake at Fernhill Wetlands back on July 31st. But I guess when you don't sweat, you have to release heat somehow.
Wikipedia states; "Birds do not have sweat glands, but they may cool themselves by moving to shade, standing in water, panting, increasing their surface area, fluttering their throat or by using special behaviors like urohidrosis to cool themselves."
Urohidrosis, now that's a big word. Wikipedia defines it as; "Urohidrosis (sometimes spelled "urohydrosis") is the habit in some birds of defecating onto the scaly portions of the legs as a cooling mechanism, using evaporative cooling of the fluids. Several species of storks and New World vultures exhibit this behavior. Birds' droppings consist of feces and urine, which are excreted together through the cloaca. The term is also used to describe the analogous behavior in seals that cool themselves while basking by urinating on their hind flippers."
Yuck! :-)

Spotted Sandpiper

Last year I was confused by Spotted Sandpipers in late Summer, but this year I'm a little wiser and know that Spotted Sandpipers loose their breast spots after breeding season. These pictures were taken at Fernhill Wetlands last Friday evening.

Marbled Godwit

I spent the day last Saturday walking around Bayocean Spit. It was my third trip there and I enjoy it for the long walk, diverse environment and birds. I arrive early and walk the beach first to take advantage of the good morning light. I don't usually see a lot of birds along this stretch, but this time I got some great close looks at a couple of Heermann's Gulls and ran into a very cooperative mix of shorebirds comprised of Semipalmated Plovers, Western Sandpipers and Sanderlings.
Walking the bay side back is usually more exciting with a variety of water fowl, gulls and passeriformes. However this time it was slower, I believe partly because it was high tide and partly because I got there later than normal because of time I spent with the gulls and shorebirds.
But, as happens more often than one would consider coincidence, I got a treat just as I was coming to the end of my hike.
There was a crowd of people ahead on the trail looking down at the water. The land rises up above the water some 20 feet at that point. At first I thought they were looking at a flock of California Gulls on a small mudflat, but as I got closer it turned out that there was a large flock of shorebirds. When I caught up with the group (turned out they were on a field trip sponsored by the Tillamook Audubon Society) they told me that there was a Baird's Sandpiper in among the Western and Least Sandpipers. I started scanning for it when I saw this large shorebird wading in the water off to the side. I quickly focused my camera on it and someone told me it was a Marbled Godwit. A new life bird for me. It was quite a ways away from me, but luckily I had the rented 400mm lens with a 1.7 teleconverter. It zoomed in pretty well. but the images turned out a bit soft. Not bad though considering the distance.

Common Yellowthroat - Masked Juvenile

I was actually able to pish this juvenile Common Yellowthroat and few others out of the tall grass along a service road at Fernhill Wetlands this past Friday evening. I've seen several juvenile Yellowthroats, but this is the first that I have seen that was transitioning into adult male plumage. Its mask is about half grown in.

This juvenile was also with the one above. I wonder if it is a male or female? Best I can tell, both sexes look the same initially.

House Wren - Juvenile

Even during the dog days of summer, there always seems to be something interesting at RNWR.
Just after the first stretch of road on the auto tour after the left turn is a small grove of trees. There's been more activity there this summer than I am used to, so I have been taking my time driving past. In the past I've found Western Tanagers and Black-headed Grosbeaks.
This time I found a juvenile House Wren. I heard it first, then noticed the tall grass moving at the source of it's staccato chirp. Then, after following what I think was an adult House Wren work its way up a tree and out of sight, I looked up at a branch not far from my car window and there sat the juvenile.
It was quite content, occasionally chirping, usually single notes, but occasionally stringing a few together.
Then it grew quite and its eyes began to droop...

...until they closed tight.

But it wasn't long before they opened again and before I knew it, it flew off into the tree that I had seen the adult, eventually moving on out of sight.

Always something interesting at Ridgefield. Too bad it's such a long drive.

Greater Yellowlegs

After my last visit to Fernhill Wetlands, I realized that an evening visit would provide great light for the shore birds that frequent the mud flat on the Barney Reservoir Project. Remember that on most visits it's cloudy, especially this year.
I decided it was going to be a rental weekend, and I was able to reserve a 400mm f2.8 and a 1.7x teleconverter. I took it out to Fernhill Friday evening and my hunch was right, the sun was was providing perfect front light on the shorebirds.
At first there were mostly Western Sandpipers and a few Least Sandpipers. Then a few Spotted Sandpipers showed up. I took a lot of pictures and will post some in the next couple of days.
I finally got tired of kneeling on the ground (note to self: get knee pads) so I took a break and wandered the service roads a bit.
I decided to make one more pass by the mud flats before going home. When I arrived, the sun was low in the sky and had just crossed behind a small cloud, so the front light was lost. Just my luck, but now was when a Great Yellowlegs had decided to show up.
I crept down close and got what I had hoped would be great pictures, even with the low light. After all, I had a fast lens. Only trouble was, I forgot I had set my camera to aperture priority while the sun was bright to get a little more depth of field. All that speed was lost and most of the pictures of the Greater Yellowlegs were blurred.
Luckily, in the image above, the bird held still enough and I held the camera still enough that I got one pretty good shot.

Mallard - Summer Molt?

My wife and I walked the perimeter of TRNWR this past Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, but other than a huge flock of Bushtits and a Cooper's Hawk, things were pretty slow. On the home stretch along the south canal, we came upon five Mallards. I believe they were all adult females as we had passed both a female with ducklings and a group juveniles further back.
They exhibited both interesting behavior and characteristics. Quite often one would start to flap its wings very fast, slapping the water and raising quite a raucous as seen above.

At other times they would completely dive under water for short periods instead of dabbling like a typical Mallard. I didn't get a picture of one diving, but you can see the splash aftermath of one that had just dove on the right side of the image above.

Then I noticed something else interesting, most of these birds were missing most of their primary and secondary feathers on their wings. As you can see above, the rump of this bird is not covered with its wing's primary feathers as you would typically see them.

I started taking pictures of any of the ducks that flapped it's wings in hopes of getting some good views of the condition of their feathers. The one above is missing most all of its wing feathers.

The duck above is also missing a lot of feathers, but you can see that some growing in.

Finally, there is this one. Its wings appear to be fairly filled out.
So why are there what appear to be adult Mallards without wing feathers? I had already read that many water fowl molt after breeding and for a while can be flightless. After doing a bit more research, I found that male Mallards molt shortly after breeding and take on plumage similar to a female called the eclipse phase. Females will molt a bit later after its ducklings have fledged. I believe this is the case with these birds.
I could not find any pictures on the web similar to these, so I suppose these could be juveniles that haven't fully feathered out, but since they seem to have adult plumage other than on their wings, I suspect that these are adults going through their summer molt.
I welcome comments that either agree or disagree. And don't forget to say why!

House Finch - Juvenile

I believe this is a juvenile House Finch. The beak and coloring looks right for a female or juvenile House Finch and the corner of the beak looks a little gummy. I found this bird at Fernhill Wetlands last Sunday near Dabbler's Marsh in the same area that I saw several other juveniles.

Lazuli Bunting - Juvenile

It had been almost a year since I had seen a Lazuli Bunting. Then, on Saturday at the Sandy River Delta, I saw several. I didn't get real close looks, but I did find a family in the same Blackberry bushes where I found the Willow Flycatchers.
The male, in the top image, tended to fly from patch to patch, but always returned. I believe the birds in the lower image is of a juvenile on the left and an adult female on the right. I base this on a couple of different observations. While it is difficult to make out, as the image is not the greatest, the bird on the left appears to have a yellowish, gummy corner on its beak. The right bird seems to lack this feature. Also, if you compare their tails you will see a fair amount of wear on the right bird, while the bird on the left appears clean. A juvenile shouldn't have any wear at this time of the year.

Willow Flycatcher - Juvenile

I made my first visit to the Sandy River Delta area this past Saturday. As with all new areas, I spent some time just learning the place. It was interesting as I was expecting a sunny day and it started out that way when I left home from Wilsonville, but as I started traveling east on I-84, it started getting cloudy and gloomy and stayed that way the whole time I was there.
As with most places now, there were a fair number of juveniles. I found a couple of juvenile Willow Flycatchers (along with juvenile Common Yellowthroats and Lazuli Buntings) in an active Blackberry patch. I have to thank members of the Portland Area Birds with their help in identifying the flycatcher as I don't see a lot of flycatchers for some reason and of course the Empidonax genus can be a challenge as they are very similar in appearance. Lack of eye ring, habit (they nest in bushes like Blackberries), and a browner coloration rather than greenish were reasons given for choosing a Willow Flycatcher.

Greater Yellowlegs

A couple of Greater Yellowlegs at Fernhill Wetlands enjoying the emerging mud flats yesterday afternoon.

Savannah Sparrow

I saw this Savannah Sparrow at Fernhill Wetlands today. Their numbers sure seem to be off from last year. Other than when they first started showing up this spring, I rarely see them. Last year they were always flushing up from the grass as I walked both Fernhill and TRNWR.

Common Yellowthroat - Juvenile

I spent the late morning and early afternoon at Fernhill Wetlands today. Birding was relatively slow for this hot spot, but there was still interesting things to see. I saw one of the three Clark's Grebes that had been common here this Spring and some shore birds are starting to show up now that the water levels are starting to lower leaving some nice mud flats.

The most numerous birds, though, wasn't a species, but an age. There were plenty of juveniles to be seen.
I found this juvenile Common Yellowthroat near Dabbler's Marsh. That area was probably the busiest, with juvenile Song Sparrows, American Robins, House Finches and Tree Swallows. Also a few I haven't figured out yet.

Northern Harrier

Only my second sighting of an adult male Northern Harrier, this raptor approached me from behind, just to my left, as I started my walk around Fernhill Lake last Saturday. I was lucky that I happened to look back and saw it coming before it had passed me, so I was able to get some decent pictures of it.
I see female and young Northern Harriers fairly regularly, but few males. This topic was brought up on the Portland Area Birds Google Group back in January. Group owner Greg Gillson had this to say:

"Here's what I found on a web search....

Males breed with more than one female and the sex ratio is not even, according to multiple studies. There were 1.8 females for every 1 male on average in one frequently-quoted study.
There was a similar nesting success, something like 1.8 young fledging per nest on average.
So, females and juveniles ("brown" harriers) outnumber males in early winter by about 3.25 to 1. There was about a 60% mortality rate of first-year birds.
Complicating the apparent ratio, males may not winter in the same locations as female and juveniles. Males are smaller than females and may migrate farther south in winter. Age/sex groups do not migrate at the same time. Adults precede juveniles back to the breeding territory and males precede females."

American White Pelican

The American White Pelicans are back for the summer. I've seen them now the last few times out both at Fernhill Wetlands and for the first time at RNWR. Just past marker 11, out in a mostly dry South Big Lake I saw a flock of about 100 of them huddled together. They looked somewhat restless so I took a quick shot of them, then stopped my car and jumped out to get a clearer shot over the tall grasses. But, by the time I got them in view, they were in flight.

They flew right over me a few times, circling as they do, slowly gaining altitude.

During the breeding season the upper mandible develops a fibrous plate called a nuptial tubercle as can be seen in the image above. It is between 1 to 3 inches in diameter. This nuptial tubercle falls off when mating season is over and is unique to the American White Pelican.

They are really magnificent birds and a wonder to watch!

Pied-billed Grebe - Juvenile

Last Friday along the auto tour at RNWR, as I passed marker 12 at the beginning of the last canal, I was hopeful that I would find something interesting. It's not uncommon to see American Bitterns along this stretch, though the occurrences have tapered off with the coming of summer. No luck with Bitterns, but I did get some good looks at my first juvenile Pied-billed Grebe.
This Grebe was dining on minnows. It didn't completely dive under the water like an adult. Instead, it would point its head straight down as if looking deep into the water and then plunge its head in, many times successfully retrieving one of the small fish. I have never seen an adult stare down into the water like this juvenile did.