Scrub-jay at the Bird Bath

I often go home at lunch. Today a scrub-jay was drinking from the tiered bird bath I’d set the hose to drip into, following a couple of days of a toxic north, dusty wind that has everyone with headaches and foul tempers. Including corvids, no doubt.

Pectoral Sandpiper

Three members of the Yolo Audubon Board were invited to meet with the new president of the Audubon Society, David Yarnold, and take him birding this morning. I was lucky enough to be one of them. This pectoral sandpiper was foraging in the early morning sunshine, bright brown cap clearly visible.

Lincoln's Sparrow

The sparrows are arriving thick and fast, their songs in full throttle set to carry us through the winter. The Lincoln’s doesn’t sing and hardly even makes a call, but it was enjoying the bird bath this morning.

Yellow-green vireo

The main story for this is “here,“http://www.magpienest.org/feathersofhope/2456/yellow-green-vireo but how could I not try to draw this amazing bird even though it was raining? It looks like a cross between a warbling vireo and a red-eyed vireo, though Rich Stallcup told me it is more closely related to black-whiskered…

Swainson's Hawks on the Move

The Swainson’s hawks have been very vocal lately, but on Saturday, there were eighteen we could count from one spot outside the kitchen window. They were kettling and also on the flooded field below, as well as in between.

I continue to find it very hard to draw birds in flight but these birds gave me lots of opportunity to practice. It was fantastic.

This bird spent a lot of time on the ground, acting as though it had a drowning gopher but perhaps so full he couldn’t actually eat it…

Canada Goose

Not many bird sketches lately. Sorry.

Four of us made it to the Arboretum at lunch today and came across a large flock of Canada geese as well as at least one cackling goose.

Hastily sketched but time to get back on this…

Barn Owl Contour Feather

Lucky me, that I get to find a barn owl feather outside my door…

Wild Turkey with Chicks in Walnut

The nice thing about going home for lunch these days is the welcoming committee outside. The walnut tree’s been pruned, making it a lot easier to see 40-lb birds perched on the lower branches. (I exaggerate, but only slightly.)

Critters at a Wedding

Numenius and I were at a wedding in Oregon this weekend. The setting was gorgeous — out in the forest south of Corvallis, in the Alsea Thyme Garden. Western tanagers and Swainson’s thrushes were singing during the ceremony. I spotted this cedar waxwing beforehand but was unable to see the dipper I was sure was working the creek that ran alongside the garden.

The pond was home to rough-skinned newts, swimming around lazily. And a young garter snake made me very happy. I spotted a raven overhead during the ceremony which seems particularly auspicious since the bride is the bloghoster of Frogs and Ravens. (No frogs, at least not that I heard, but hoping a newt and a garter snake make up for that.)

Wild Turkey Chick

And they’re back. Two sets of chicks, each with two or more adult females, rampaging across the landscape. They’ve been eating the fallen mulberries out back, driving the cats to near apoplexy with their constant cheep-cheep-cheeping…