Great Horned Owl on nest, Jackson Bottom Wetlands, Hillsboro, Oregon on 8 February 2010 by Greg Gillson.The week started sunny and fairly warm. Rick Balazs performed several bird censuses, including the Owl Woods on the edge of the Hillsboro Landfill, and also the new Madsen Property about a mile downriver, neither are publicly accessible. Thus we started the week with more bird species than we ended the last week.
One of the birds Rick found on the Hillsboro Landfill ponds on February 6 was a single BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON. It has been found only one other time this winter. Also, Rick located a flock of WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS on the Madsen property. These are the first of winter on the Preserve, though perhaps they have been present at Madsen, as it doesn't get birded often (yet).
A drake EURASIAN WIGEON was spotted a couple of times during the week and may be the one seen last week.
There was a GREAT HORNED OWL that Rick spotted in Owl Woods this week, but the bird photographed above on the nest was 1/4 mile from there in the Ash Woods behind Pintail Pond. Owls do not build their own nests, so they nest in Red-tailed Hawk nests before the hawks begin to rebuild it in April. I actually didn't find the bird--a flock of AMERICAN CROWS did. They were noisily excited and I looked up at the old hawk nest to see only two "horns" sticking up above the rim of the nest. I made a squeaking noise and whistled a brief pygmy owl imitation and the owl raised her head just a bit and opened one eye to look at me in what I took to be disgust. "Just go away" is written plainly on her face. Anthropomorphising? What?
Continuing birds include the patagial tagged RED-TAILED HAWK, the RED-SHOULDERED HAWK, and a dozen GREAT EGRETS.
67 species this week:
Cackling Goose
Canada Goose
Gadwall
Eurasian Wigeon
American Wigeon
Mallard
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Canvasback
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
American Coot
Killdeer
Dunlin
Mew Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl
Anna's Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Steller's Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtit
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Bewick's Wren
Marsh Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
American Robin
European Starling
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Spotted Towhee
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Brewer's Blackbird
Purple Finch
House Finch
Pine Siskin
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch