Red-Breasted Sapsucker at the Dunes

I don't get many chances to see Red-breasted Sapsuckers (Sphyrapicus ruber). They live in our area, and I've seen them at Modesto Junior College, Cal State Stanislaus, and on my beloved Tuolumne River, but only a few times at each spot. We are on the road for Thanksgiving up in Oregon along the Pacific Coast, and we were taking a short walk today at Holman Vista near the beautiful town of Florence.

At first we didn't see a single bird, but once we reached the vista point itself and stopped moving, the birds started making themselves known, including a Wrentit, some Northern Flickers, a Spotted Towhee, and a juvenile Bald Eagle soaring high overhead. But it was the bright red head of the Sapsucker that really caught our attention. It was moving around a lot, but settled on a tree trunk for a moment, allowing me to get a couple of shots.

Sutton Creek, which flows below Holman Vista, is part of a deflation basin. Historically this area was a dune system, but the planting of a European dune grass sort of "overstabilized" the dunes. The grasses trapped sand right along the beach forming the higher ridge seen on the left. Beyond the beach however, wind blew away the sand, leaving behind a basin in which trees and shrubs could take root. Occasional ponds and streams provide water and food, so a large variety of birds and other animals moved in.

Hooded Mergansers on the Siuslaw River Estuary in Oregon

I've had a couple of new birds show up on the blog in the last couple of posts, including the White-tailed Kite that surprised me last week a few blocks from home. On the other hand, I did some heavy-duty traveling and found myself in Oregon for Thanksgiving. I was visiting family in their home on a bluff above the Siuslaw River estuary.

The Siuslaw River marks the northern boundary of the Oregon Dunes National Recreational Area, which extends south for forty miles along the coast. The north bank of the river is preserved as Harbor Vista County Park, which was a short walk away through the neighborhood. I walk there whenever I visit, and something interesting is usually happening on the tidal flats. When the tide is out, there are several acres of mud, and various shorebirds will be hanging out. When the tide is up, the water birds show up. When I got there the tide was in, and I saw some Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) for the first time (it's been three years of bird-watching, but I'm still getting started).

The pair of them were hunting for prey in the flooded tidal flat. While I watched, one of them caught some kind of crustacean and gobbled it up.

I think they were a couple of females, but as always, I accept corrections. They are ducks that nest in cavities in trees, and when the ducklings are only 24 hours old, they jump out of the nest onto the ground, falling 50 feet or more. They follow mom to the nearest water source.

I'll be back in Oregon in a few weeks for the holidays. I hope to see a few more interesting birds then!

Northern Harrier at Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area

I haven't had many chances to catch pictures of Northern Harriers (Circus cyaneus). It's not that we haven't seen any, it's just that when we do, they are flying and swooping some distance away. It looked like it was going to be another of that kind of day today as well.

We were headed out towards the South Jetty of Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area to have a look at the pounding surf, and we saw a pair of birds flying low over the prairie grasses inland from the coast. I took them to be gulls out the corner of my eye but then realized they were flying differently.

In war movies, there's the occasional reference to flying beneath the radar, with planes skimming the surface and all, and that's what these birds were doing. They hardly ever went more than 10 feet off the ground as they soared across the landscape, appearing and disappearing around the high shrubs. I finally saw the flash of white at the base of their tails, and I knew they were Northern Harriers.

Still, it wasn't easy getting any pictures. One of them was actually paralleling the road, so we were able to follow it for more than a mile before losing it in the distant brush. We argued about whether to back down the road to see if it had circled back behind us but then I looked across the road through the window, and there was a Harrier perched on a log just a few yards away from us.

A bit fuzzy, but this was my best shot showing the owl-like face of the Harrier Hawk.

They have a short round face that strongly resembles an owl. In an evolutionary sense, this is an adaptation that enables the owls to hear sounds better, and the Harrier Hawks also depend a great deal on hearing for their hunting as they soar close to the ground. This sort of thing is called convergent evolution, when totally different organisms evolve similar features. Sharks and dolphins are examples of the same sort of convergence.

POSTSCRIPT (7/6/17): The scientific name of the Northern Harrier has been changed to Circus hudsonius