Our wintering WHITE-THROATED SPARROW continues at our feeders daily
here as well. Strange to have it so late.
Happy migration,
Thomas Meinzen
Eugene
On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 11:39 PM, Mark Nikas <elepaio@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:elepaio@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Oscar's report of a Burrowing Owl in Benton County is 2 weeks
later than any previous record for wintering birds in the valley
and about 5 weeks later than typical late dates.Nice find.
The bird that wintered this year near Halsey departed sometime
between March 4th and 17th. Most years wintering birds disappear
in February. East side birds often return to nesting territories
in March.
I've had 50 species of birds from my yard in west Eugene the past
2 days with 42 the count for each day. There's been a lot of
turnover. Every spring I hope to hit the magic 50 in one day but
49 has been the limit so far. After almost 20 years here new yard
birds are scarce but there's still a few I expect sooner or later.
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON was not on that expected list but as I
stepped out the door last evening I had 1 croaking directly
overhead as it flew westbound towards Fern Ridge Res. a mile away.
A male CALLIOPE HUMMER has visited apple blossoms briefly the past
2 days but has ignored my feeders. The wintering WHITE-THROATED
SPARROW continues and is quite late for here.
BAND-TAILED PIGEONS made an impressive showing today. They nest in
the neighborhood and first showed up last month in small numbers.
Today I had flocks of 12, 14 and 44 fly over. The group of 12 flew
to a nearby butte but the other 2 flocks continued northward. The
group of 44 was quite high - aprox. 1000' up. I'm guessing these
were late migrants.
HOUSE WREN showed up today. So did House Sparrows. They nest in
neighboring barns and attempt to use my nest boxes each year but
then disappear later in summer rarely to be seen again until the
following spring. I used to think of them as a more sedentary species.
Mark Nikas
Eugene
