Hi Tweets!

Despite time constraints and really crummy weather, we did manage to see a
few interesting birds along with the usual scrub jays, stellers jays, crows,
ravens.

The first night out we stayed at Humbug Mtn. Campground on the Oregon coast
and were treated to Cliff Swallows nesting under the bridge near the beach.
Interesting gourd-shaped nests.

The biggest surprise turned out to be my parents' backyard in Santa Rosa.
During the course of the day we had:

Male & Female Anna's Hummingbird
California Quail pair with seven young
Song Sparrow
Male & Female House Finch
Three Brown towhees
Yearling buck white-tailed deer
heard a RS Towhee

And, this really knocked my socks off, I did a double take, double checked
the guide and did a double take again, as I'd never seen anything like it
before: A pair of Acorn Woodpeckers eating off the feeder. I did get
several photos of this.

I traced their flight back to a large pine on the next block. Based on
their behavior at the feeder, I'd make an educated guess they were nesting
there. I've never seen an Acorn W. stuff it's beak full of little millet
seeds before.

At the Hoopa Indian Reservation on Hwy 96 we stopped at the Tish Teng
Campground where we had a Dipper and several Turkey Vultures, but not much
else. The Dipper was pretty exciting, though, and we approached quite close
for good observation.

Farther along the Klamath River at a small wayside, as we ran to the car
through rain and hail, we heard the tell-tail call of the Osprey and, sure
enough, they were soaring high above the river seeming unconcerned with the
bad weather.

Between Happy Camp and the next town east (sorry, didn't write down the
name) we saw no less than eight large, tree-top nests spaced evenly 1/4 mile
apart. Never did find out who inhabits them. It was raining pretty hard
and we couldn't see anything sticking heads (or any other body parts) out of
the nests.

At the Sheahan Bar Campground, 15 minutes from I5 and the Klamath rest stop,
we had great fun watching a Bullock's Oriole courting his hen down by the
river, much to the chagrine of a RS Towhee who kept finding himself in the
same tree as all this activity.

Amazingly, as this was the middle of nowhere with very little (it seemed to
me) food, a Rufus-sided hummer was buzzing around the trailer checking out
the orange and red running lights.

I did have a mystery bird at this spot, though. I checked both the Audubon
Field Guide and National Geographical, all to no avail. It had a bright
yellow breast and throat, narrow white eye stripe above the eye, very sharp
beak like a vireo (black) and the upper body was olive with a flash of white
on the wings when it flitted to another poison oak (yuck) branch. I thought
at first it was a MacGillivray's Warbler, but the eye crescents weren't
present and the throat was very yellow. It remains a mystery.

Along the stretch of Highway between the rest stop and Yreka, there were
several Mourning Doves, an Adult Bald Eagle and a Red-Tailed Hawk circling
over the same area of the river, at different altitudes.

The Klamath rest stop (always one of our favorite places for nature
watching) proved no disappointment this time around. There were several
Ring-billed Gulls in the parking lot, Cliff Swallows under the bridge and,
this was really fun to watch, a Bullock's Oriole and a blackbird
(undetermined variety) dive bombing a crow who then turned around and let a
gull have it!

Well, that was about it for the trip.

Happy birding!

Peggi
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Veneta, OR
prodgers at efn.org

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer,
it sings because it has a song"