Harriers, Juncos, and Jays....Oh My!

Before putting the seeds out for the birds this year, I had never really noticed much bird activity during the winter. I always figured most of the really interesting birds left town for the season, so there was not much to see. This winter is teaching me otherwise.

Last Sunday, on the way to and at my mom's house in Sandy, we saw Black-billed Magpies, a Black-capped Chickadee in a pine tree in the back yard, a Common Raven flying over the neighborhood, and a hawk that I could not get a good enough look at to identify. When we returned home, we took some stale bread we had and went to a local park where we have often fed the ducks. The only problem this time was all the cold temperatures we have had lately had frozen the pond solid, so we decided to head to East Bay to see if we could find any ducks there. As we drove on the road the goes back behind the strip mall, we saw something amazing; four Northern Harriers we hanging out on the bank of the little stream that runs along the road. The group was composed of one adult male, at least one adult female, and either two more females or two juveniles. I am still working on my identifying skills, but looking at one of my field guides at home later made me think the others were likely juveniles. As we slowly drove by and watched them take flight, I was cursing myself for not having my camera with me.

We continued to drive toward a parking area near the lake at the golf course. On the way we saw four huge gray geese waddling along the road and a small flock of Canada Geese resting and eating the grass on the hillside by the landfill. At the lakeside, we fed the bread to the Mallards and American Coots that were in the open water. On the way back home, I decided to grab my camera and head back to where the harriers had been on the chance that they would return. Here is what we saw:

The harriers were eating what was left of a dead coot by the water, which is why we were lucky enough to see them when we came back. The light was better when we first saw them, but I was happy to be able to get these pictures. I also managed to get a nice picture of a mallard and a coot nearby.

Posing for the camera. Thank goodness for long lenses.

Yesterday morning, I noticed that there a lot of birds eating some seed I had tossed out on the driveway. It had gotten wet in the bowl and I did not want it to freeze solid. I got dressed, grabbed my camera, and quietly opened the door and stood in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs. That put me at just about level with the driveway. The house sparrows that had been eagerly gobbling up the seed before I opened the door fled at the first sight of me, but I decided to quietly wait to see if they would come back. They never did, but I was soon delighted by the appearance of this fellow.

We had seen a Western Scrub Jay at the seed bowl before, but this one's appearance was entirely unexpected. Of course I heard him before he actually appeared, but I was still glad to get a good shot of him. He scooped up some of the bigger bits and then flew off. Not too long after his exit, I had these birds show up.

I was actually surprised that I was able to get photos of these Dark-eyed Juncos. When they have stooped at the seed bowl in the past, they have been even more skittish than the sparrows, but these two seemed totally unperturbed by my presence in the stair well. They were fun to watch.

Like I said, the sparrows never did come back. I listened to four European Starlings sitting on the power line making noises imitating everything from a car alarm to a Black-capped Chickadee. They were rather amusing. I also saw a Eurasian Collared Dove, but the mist was too thick to take a good photo. All in all, it was a very fun morning.