Wanting to drive my new car some more, and still learning to use all of the
cool stuff it has (I think its even capable of time travel) I picked Marty
Cunningham up to go look at the half dozen recent "good" birds at Philomath
SP
We spectacularly missed them all. I thought I was pretty good at chasing
and re-finding known rare and uncommon birds. Not today. I think the best
bird we had in the thick fog there was a nice bright male CINNAMON TEAL
We went up to Baskett Slough to see if that Harris' Sparrow was around. No
But redemption was at hand: We went up Livermore and out West Perrydale Rd
to the pond at the corner of W Perrydale and I think it is Tucker Rd, about
2 miles west of Perrydale. Tragedy was narrowly averted when we saw 4
LEWIS' WOODPECKERS, the crow-like woodpecker that Lewis and Clark found.
We did not see the woodpecker-like crow (Clark's Nutcracker) that they are
also credited with..never mind that, I just like the juxtaposition
I have not seen 4 Lewis's in the Willamette Valley in decades. I remember
I think Joel G and Bob Altman have seen higher numbers recently near
Jefferson (Marion) on private land, probably not chaseable.
That was exciting to me, having watched 4 LEWO preparing nest cavities on a
small farm near Wheatland Ferry that Levera and I had with our 2 baby
daughters in 1980, only to be displaced and not seen again, by Starlings
and I doubt I have seen as many as 4 around here since..
In those days we lived next door to Mel Counts, my childhood hero (OSU went
to the final four in the early 1960s, and I went to several OSU BB games to
see that team where he was their star 7 foot center, but in person he
turned out to be a jerk, and an obnoxious and loudmouth Republican to
boot. We had some good Republicans in those days you know.
I got off track there in the last paragraph. I am sorry and I won't do it
again
I'll ebird the LEWO in a while, on a 10 minute stationery count we had 4
Woodpecker species
Roy Gerig Salem OR
