I biked to Skinner Butte and Alton Baker Park and birded the area in
between them midday today. No luck with Jim Carlson's Yellow-bellied
Sapsucker, but had some other good birds in the area, including a PILEATED
WOODPECKER that flew past me and then worked its way up the butte. A
RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER was drilling new sap wells into a well-covered pine
in the parking lot between the river and the Campbell Senior Center. This
tree might be a good place to look for the Yellow-bellied. Several others
around the parking area have sap wells too, but none appear to be recent or
active.
While we were looking for the sapsucker, Sally Hill found a female COMMON
GOLDENEYE in the river at this location a few hundred yards west of the
Ferry Street Bridge, and a while later I found a second feeding nearby,
then together with it. They were both still there on my way back a couple
hours later.
At Alton Baker Park I had a WHITE-THROATED SPARROW with a flock of
Golden-crowns and 8 HOODED MERGANSERS in the canal. After my second time
through, I found a young NORTHERN SHRIKE hunting Yellow-rumped Warblers in
the blackberries and small trees north of the bike path and just east of
the I-5 bridge. It almost caught two of them!
Good day to be out,
Thomas Meinzen
Eugene / Walla Walla
