The voice of the Northern Saw-whet Owl

I spent some time working with a different shot of the Saw-whet Owl from last evening, and also uploaded a video. (See below) You can't see the owl, but hopefully you can hear his distinctive call.

Northern Saw-whet Owl in Yamhill Co., Oregon

This evening I was in the eastern slope foothills of the Coast Range in western Yamhill Co. At about 8:30 p.m. a Northern Saw-whet Owl began calling, so I moved closer to where the voice was coming from, and began talking back to him. Soon he was perching on low branches within about 10 ft. of me, and was snapping his bill, which seemed to be a kind of threat to the supposed invader of his territory. When I left after about 10 minutes he had moved back into the taller fir forest, but was still energetically uttering his endless string of toots.

As I was "talking" to the owl, I heard a flock of White-fronted Geese approaching from the southeast, but I had some difficulty seeing them at first. I was at about 750 ft. of elevation, and the flock was much higher than I was. The photo below was taken at about 10X telephoto, so I estimated that the birds must have been at an altitude of about 2,000 ft.

Wild Turkeys multiplying in Oregon

Growing up here in Oregon I never expected to see Wild Turkeys in my home state, much less on my own property. But this weekend it happened. These big birds, imports from the east or south, are doing quite well in places along the eastside foothills of the Coast Range.

Image from Bald Eagle nest camera

This is not my photo. I saved one moment from a live streaming video image that is available 24 hours a day on the internet. It's the closest one could ever be to actually sitting in a Bald Eagle nest while the eagle family is present. And now there are two new nestlings that just hatched a few days ago. At the time this image was captured it looked like they were eating crow, in a very literal sense. But other meals appear to consist of fish or muskrat. The nest is somewhere in Iowa, but you can visit it here:

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles.

Brewer's Blackbird colors

I just have to return again to my favorite Annie Dillard quote: "Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."

Even if it's in a department store parking lot!