Oregon Birding - Day Two, Morning

Oregon Ash woodland

A short walk from my daughter's home is an open area between the housing development and a new primary school complex. A drainage runs near the edge of the development, with a stand of Oregon Ash trees that are typical of the Willamette Valley wetland terraces. Just beyond the woodland, there is a nice stretch of open grassland that is highly disturbed - probably managed so there won't be fire late in the season, very few native prairie species grow there.

American Goldfinch

American Goldfinch are abundant, including these that were perched on plant stems while eating seeds of a dandelion-like plant and grasses. These birds were very wary of me, so they would keep moving ahead of me - not letting me get a decent close-up photograph. They would keep doing this until I had bothered them enough, and then they flew away. The goldfinch traveled in flocks of five or six, and typically would land high in tree tops where they would flutter around moving from one tree to another - never coming down close to me for some more pictures. Shown in the photograph are a male (left) and female (right). Seeing how the goldfinches hang up-side-down from the feeder at home explains how they also can attach themselves to plant stems in what-ever-direction-best-suits-them in a more natural setting.

Brown Creepers

These two Brown Creepers were the best siting I made this morning. I stood on the sidewalk close to the edge of the woodland when they landed on a tree and started making their way in tandem up the trunk. After a while they flew to a neighboring tree and did the same - eventually flying to another tree further into the stand. I saw at least two other species inside the woods. All of these birds don't seem to hold still for very long - constantly moving along whatever branch they happen to be on, or jumping from one tree to another. The coloration of these birds blends in with the bark of the tree. It is easy to see the bird that stands out in contrast to the lighted background - the bird to its left is well camouflaged.

Putative Song Sparrow

Even with the clouds today, the light inside the woods is very muted, except where bright patches of light show through the canopy. The contrast is great enough to make any photograph taken near the canopy margins difficult using the automatic exposure setting on my digital camera. I tried to get a good angle for me with the bird in the picture to right so that it would look like a silhouette. As it turned out, if it wasn't for the Adjust feature in the Edit tool of iPhoto, I wouldn't have been able to make out that this bird was likely a Song Sparrow.
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Map of local environs

Here is a Google Map for the housing development and the neighboring woodland mentioned above. The woodland is to the right middle of the map - grassland extends to the right half of the map. I did most of my birding this morning from the sidewalk along the road that cuts through the upper tip of the woodland. A feature of these woodlands that is important to remember: poison oak - when looking for birds, always pay attention to where you are walking and what you are walking up against.