Subject: [Tweeters] "rules" for yard birds?
Date: Dec 10 14:43:18 2007
From: johntubbs at comcast.net - johntubbs at comcast.net
Hi All,
I couldn't resist chiming in on how I first added Great Blue Heron to my yard list. Our next door neighbors put in a relatively large three-tiered formal cascading water fountain in their back yard only about fifteen feet from the house and close to our property line with them. Shortly after they turned the water on, I got a call from them one Saturday morning, excitedly telling me about the "huge bird, I think it's a crane or something" sitting on the edge of their fountain. Of course it was a heron, apparently convinced there were fish or frogs lurking in the fountain pool. Every day for at least a week, the fountain was visited by this bird who patiently perched in a hunting posture, looking for a meal. One time, the heron walked up to their back door and stood staring at its reflection in the glass for a few minutes. I wasn't too convinced at the time that this particular bird was going to add anything to its species' gene pool, assuming it eventually even got the !
opportu
nity...! Since then, I've had at least three flyovers that were counted as well.
John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com
-------------- Original message --------------
From: ravenintherain <ccorax at blarg.net>
> Josh Hayes wrote:
> > Tweets,
> >
> > We live near North Seattle community college, and last year a Great Blue
> > Heron flapped in and perched in a tree -- in my neighbor's yard. I count it
> > anyway. :-P
> >
> > -Josh Hayes, josh at blarg dot net
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> >
>
> Herons still surprise me by the range of their perching behavior. It's
> common to see them perched in fairly low deciduous trees or low among
> the foliage in coniferous trees, but a few days ago at North Seattle
> Community College (NSCC) I noticed one sitting on the topmost branch of
> a fir tree, around 75 feet up looking for all the world as if it thought
> it was a raptor or robin . It would have been visible from every yard
> for a half-mile around.
>
> BTW, for anyone who is not aware of it, NSCC is a fine place for
> birding. There are groves and brushy areas at both the north and south
> ends of the campus that have finches, chickadees, woodpeckers, etc.
> year-round. The highlight of the campus is a pond which is the
> headwater of one of the branches of Thornton Creek. It is on the east
> edge of the grounds, which places it right next to the roar of I-5, but
> the birds don't seem to mind the noise. At this time of year it is a
> good place for wood ducks, gadwall, mallards, pied-billed grebe, coots,
> hooded mergansers and shovelers. On the day I saw the above-mentioned
> heron, there were half-a-dozen wood ducks and one male hooded merganser
> among the occupants of the pond.
>
> NSCC is at 9600 College Way North, right across the freeway from
> Northgate Mall. Licton Springs Park, another sometimes profitable
> birding spot, is three blocks west of the campus and for a little taste
> of the exotic, check out Pilling's Duck Pond, about half-a-mile to the
> southwest on 90th Street between Wallingford and Stone. An obituary of
> Charles Pilling with a little info on his pond is available at the
> following Seattle Times link:
>
> http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?s
> lug=obit29m&date=20011029&query=pilling
>
> Good birding,
>
> Dale
>
> --
> Dale Chase
> (AKA ravenintherain)
> Seattle, Washington
> ccorax at blarg.net
>
>
>
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