TIS THE SEASON

It’s not just about the nest box, but where that nest box is placed. This one happens to be in a patch of oak savannah at about 3000 in the western foothills of the Oregon Cascades. It’s surrounded by open meadow and rolling hills that drop sharply down to a year-round stream. No humans live within a mile of the place and it’s back from the highway. No pesticides, no toxics. Just the sort of neighborhood where you’d raise your family if you were a bluebird.

This nest box is on the fence of a tiny garden behind a row of town houses. It faces a busy sidewalk next to a busier parking lot adjacent to a dog park full of noise-making carnivores. Just the sort of avian slum where you’d expect the hardscrabble House Sparrow to eke out a living on bread crumbs and seeds.

This drumming Red-breasted Sapsucker is still advertising for a mate. House-hunting will come later.

This pair of Flickers seem well-matched. She sits up and listens to his drumming. What more could a male Flicker ask for? And later in the day I saw them checking out nest holes in Lithia Park, Ashland, Oregon. Location, location…

Look carefully to the left of the female Great Horned Owl. You’ll see the round, white head of an owlet and its dark eye-rings. This is at least the fourth straight year a pair of GHOs have used this nest near Ashland. Whoever first built that nest did a great job; owls don’t build their own nests but “borrow” or squat in what they can find.
MAGEE MARSH
PIB will be present at the Magee Marsh bird festival again in early May. Here are some nest pictures fro last year. This female Woodcock nested in a weedy strip along one side of the very busy parking lot.
Shortly after they hatched before a group of wondering birders, mother Woodcock led her quartet of newly dried fuzz-balls into the nearby Magee Marsh woods where they quickly vanished from view.

Finding a place to raise your children is always emotional. This pair of Ohio Tree Swallows is a case in point.

And, finally, this location seems perfect for Great Blue Herons. It’s at least the third straight year the nest has been used. It sits high in a cottonwood above Neil Creek, facing Oak Knoll Golf Course southeast of Ashland.

HERE IN ASHLAND, OREGON, THE KLAMATH BIRD OBSERVATORY IS SPONSORING OUR FIRST-EVER MOUNTAIN BIRD FESTIVAL. IT IS MAY 30-JUNE 1. WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER, CALLIOPE HUMMINGBIRD, WESTERN SCREECH-OWL, SANDHILL CRANES ON NESTING GROUNDS, BOTH EAGLES, NESTING OSPREY, ACORN & LEWIS’S WOODPECKERS, MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD AND CHICKADEE, HERMIT AND MACGILLIVRAY’S WARBLER, CASSIN’S FINCH AND VIREO, BAND-TAILED PIGEON, BLACK TERN, RED-BREASTED AND WILLIAMSON’S SAPSUCKERS, GREEN-TAILED TOWHEE, LAZULI BUNTING, AMERICAN DIPPER, WRENTIT, TOWNSEND’S SOLITAIRE–SOME OF THE BIRDS WE EXPECT TO SEE. WITH A LITTLE BIRDING MOJO WE CAN ADD GREAT GRAY OWL, SOOTY GROUSE, MOUNTAIN QUAIL, NORTHERN PYGMY-OWL, SWAINSON’S HAWK, EVENING GROSBEAKAND NORTHERN GOSHAWK.

Tags: American Woodcock, Cascades, drumming, Flicker, Great Horned Owl, nest box, nesting, Ohio, Tree Swallow, Western Bluebird