What is your favorite bird? And every fowl encounter you've had under the sun

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The woods on Mt. Tabor have the wonderful smell of Western Red Cedars mixed in with the distinct odor of decaying organic matter, something we don’t get a lot of here in the desert. I wonder sometimes if going into the forest isn’t a form of aroma therapy.

Birds were a lot easier to hear than see in Oregon, and birding by ear became key. I was able to spent a long time in the field just listening and looking into the leaves. It was a happy and peaceful time.

Here’s two pictures I got of a Brown Creeper also on Mt. Tabor. Looking at his primaries, he looks like he was a June baby. There’s lot’s of them out there.

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I finally had my first real life encounter of the year with the OP at Tualatin River NWR. He was fishing (again) and had a fiery look in his eye.

I only saw him once again on the coast. He was fishing in the surf He missed his target this time and spent a few moments in the breakers looking more like a surfer than a fisher. He finally broke free and with a few shudders shook the salt water from his feathers while heading south. And that’s the last I saw of him.

Still missing you @JamalChristophr

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Great camouflaging!!

Here’s some birds of a sort,
😃
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Some more birds from Tualatin River NWR.

GBH of course.

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A pair of Cinnamon Teal. The male is going into eclipse plumage.

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One of those hyperactive Bushtits @Christofirst was talking about earlier. Not sure how I got this one to sit still.

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A Savannah Sparrow. They were singing their hearts out.

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Finally made it to the coast. Isn’t it lovely?

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Great picture. Not just the birds but that awesome fish like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
 
Very pretty @tad 😃
And yeah…what kind of beastie are those vultures (buzzards?) eating?
 
I’m pretty sure it was a sea lion. It stunk!

From death to life, here’s a recently fledged Barn Swallow that was hanging out by the campground bathrooms.

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Carvings in a local park

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At the Santa Monica Mountains yesterday we saw many swifts or swallows zipping and darting eating the flying bugs. They were too fast and far away for my phone camera to capture 😒
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Here’s a butterfly instead
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Nice butterfly and deserty looking plants.
Well,we can imagine the swifts and swallows 🙂
I tried to capture a vidio of dragonflies last summer with kind of the same results…they were just too small and fast .
 
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One of my most vivid memories are of nighthawks catching insects on the wing during twilight.
 
That looks so good. I had Quail done a bit simpler, and it was quite tasty, but that looks lovely.
 
Swifts and swallows are fairly easy to tell apart in flight. Swallows have angular wings which they flap while swifts have sickle shaped wings that flutter. Swifts have also been described as looking like ‘cigars with wings’.

It is hard getting good looks of both of them with binoculars much less trying to get photographs. One thing that works for me is trying to find them while they’re perched. 😃 This one is a Violet-green Swallow on the Oregon coast. (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
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More birds from the Oregon coast.

Pelagic Cormorant, you can tell by it’s skinny bill.

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@Rob2 you’ll be very interested to know that this is an American Crow

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Eastern boys and Western Gull! (it’s a song)

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These are the tidal flats of the South Jetty of the Columbia River, a sublime place I was really excited to be here. It was the first time I got to spend some time there and go out on the jetty. It put the fear of God in me.

I should have gotten some more shots of the place. I only got this one because of that small dot in pool.
It’s a Short-billed Dowitcher.

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Here’s a close up.

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This is a Black Oystercatcher. One of my favourite birds.

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And a young Western Gull having a stretch.

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