Yesterday I saw my first owl ever! It was around 5pm and I looked out
our back window to see a bird diving down from a large bigleaf maple to
the ground. He did this about 8 times flying back up to several different
trees. He sat long enough for us to get some great looks at him and enough
time to get our books out and identify him. I know the shrews and moles
have been out since it warmed up in the last week, so he had plenty of
food. What a treat! My husband and in-laws all saw him, too.

Today we had over a hundred birds in our front and back yards. There
have been lots of varied thrushes in the past few days as well as 12 robins
last weekend. But today, there were varied thrushes, robins, and juncos
everywhere at once. I counted probably 30 thrushes as fast as I could.
Then we went to the front window and there were a quick 10 there. I
didn't even get to the others. So many birds! At the same time I noticed a
bird traveling up the tree across the driveway and saw a brown creeper
for just the second time in my life. What a weekend!

Our property has varied habitats. We have wooded wetland and shrub
wetland with a stream on the lower property. The upper property was
cleared a year before we bought it. It is now filling up with native plants,
alders, vine maple, hazelnut, all kinds of forbs, etc. Around the edges are
lots of older Doug fir, hemlock, cedar, alder, cascara, etc. Every year
there are more and more varieties of birds. Our snow is almost completely
gone, but we had so much up here on Mt. Hood I wonder if that's why we
have so many birds at our 1500 ft elevation. I have my hummingbird
feeders out just in case and the swallow nestboxes are ready. I love
hearing reports of everything so near. I can't wait until I see my first
Evening Grosbeak, Wilson's warbler, and Hermit warbler. I hope we get a
Western Tanager back. I think they nested in a huge Doug fir my neighbor
was forced to cut down last winter. They didn't nest around here last
year as in the previous 3 years. Very sad.

I love the anticipation spring brings!

Take care,
Nancy