It was a beautiful day for a bike ride around Sauvie Island. I had read of
Wink Gross's report of Purple Martins a few days ago but still didn't
expect to find them myself as I was not going where he had found them and
the earliest I'd ever seen them before was April 14. But about 1 minute
after crossing the bridge I heard them and then found 2 by a nest box over
the channel.
Shortly after that I saw an OSPREY on a nest on top of a pole in the
channel. I wound up finding 3 other pairs of Ospreys all on nests
scattered around the island.
At Wapato an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER was singing, and it looked like a
Black-capped Chickadee was working on a nest in a tree hole. I'd seen
reports of Common Yellowthroat on the island but I did not come across any.
As previously reported a GREAT HORNED OWL is on a nest near the 3rd
telephone pole north of Coon's Point.
There are still lots of SANDHILL CRANES around. I recently re-read "Birds
of Heaven" by Peter Matthiessen about his search for all the world's
cranes, and have always felt fortunate that we live in a place where one of
the world's cranes can be found. Gorgeous birds. There also are many
CACKLING GEESE but I did not see any swans or Snow Geese.
Rentenaar Rd had its usual nice assortment of sparrows with Song,
Golden-crowned, White-crowned, Lincoln's and Savannah as well as Junco and
Towhee. It seems last winter and this Fox Sparrows have been scarce there,
and I did not see any today. At the end of Rentenaar Rd there were several
AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS flying.
Photos of a pair of Osprey, a pair of Purple Martins staring down a
European Starling, and a few Sandhill Cranes are at
http://andyfrank.blogspot.com/
Andy Frank
