Skywatch Friday

A sparrowhawk perches on a power line above an open field, watching for lunch on a sunny Sunday morning.

Lucky Catch

In the same trees from yesterday, I managed to catch a few shots of this little guy, who actually stayed long enough for me to get some pictures. Anyone want to venture a guess as to what he is?

Hot Chicks

These particular baby chickens were being taken care of by my mother-in-law when her friends went on a weekend trip. Some friends of mine who live in the heart of Walla Walla actually raise chickens and though I haven't gotten out there to see them yet this year, they do have some new chicks currently. They raise chickens, selling the eggs, eating the meat, and making their own egg products such as mayonnaise. Incidentally, those eggs made the absolute BEST deviled eggs I've ever tasted.

Brunch

Perched on a fence at the side of our house, a flicker was munching on some late harvest grapes. The fall colours really make this picture, I think; the flickers have really been enjoying our neighbourhood lately and I'm not sure why. Flickers are common in this valley, and are related to woodpeckers, so they have hearty, thick beaks and can be heard hammering away on telephone poles and thick tree trunks throughout the summer. When they are in flight they have a distinctive wing-flap/swoop pattern, and the underside of their wings display a splash of rusty red.

Poland 8

These Mute Swans covered the beaches around the Baltic Sea, on the edge of which Kolobrzeg is situated. They were fairly friendly, as in they didn't run from people right away. They had relatively small "personal space bubbles" and allowed us to get quite close before acting nervous and padding in the opposite direction. They are so elegant.

Magpies

These birds, although beautiful and reputedly intelligent, are quite annoying. They are very prolific around the Pacific Northwest, but typically avoid cities. This one was resting on the fence around a local elementary school located behind the movie theatre. (And yes, we only have one theatre.) I wish I could've caught a shot of him flying, so you could see the real beauty of these birds, but he took off too quickly and there wasn't enough time.

Watching You

This is a close-up of the Great Blue Heron I showed you in flight on Thursday. I managed to snap this shot before he got a bit nervous and took off upriver. For more information on these birds, see Thursday's post (scroll down...).

In Flight

This is a Great Blue Heron. We were walking along Mill Creek with our dog and got a bit too close for comfort for the large bird. In this picture you can also see the evenly spaced steps in Mill Creek, which I explained in Monday's post. Great Blue Herons are large birds (I'll show you a close-up this weekend), with wingspans of between 5 1/2 and 6 1/2 feet. They are also very elegant and beautiful birds. There are many of them in this area because the land in the WWV is often marshy and wet, and herons like to feed in this kind of terrain.

Merganser

This is a Merganser. I believe it is a type of duck, but one that isn't as common in these parts as the mallards I've shown you on a few occasions. There were several of them around some rocks in Mill Creek when my husband and I were at Rooks Park over the weekend. (Credit to my husband for this photo.)

Another Bird

Since we're on a bird kick here at WWV Daily Photo, I thought I'd finish out the weekend with a Mourning Dove. I stopped to take a picture of the gorgeous green (though perhaps currently misnomered) Blue Mountains, and this little guy posed for me just across the street from where we had parked. The field and hills made a fantastic background for this rather blah little brown bird. These are common birds here in the Pacific Northwest United States, and perhaps you have them where you live? I can't say for sure why they're called Mourning Doves, but they do coo a bit like they're crying. They have a soothing, soft call, and are cute little birds, even if they aren't as colourful as their larger relatives, the ducks.

Daddy?

Could this beautiful male Mallard be the father of the babies from yesterday's post? It's possible...but there are plenty of ducks in the park. This guy was waiting around near the table where we were eating at the park, in hopes that we'd take pity on his quite obviously "starving" self and drop some food. We didn't, and he gave up. It's hard to refrain, but if you feed one, you'll soon have a crowd of them honking and quacking around you, and it starts to get oppressive. I love the little curl in this one's tail.

The Little Family

Here's a closeup of what the kids were finding so interesting at the park in yesterday's post. They eventually made their way down to where we were sitting enjoying our dinner, and I managed to snap a few quick shots before they floated away down the stream and under the bridge. I just love spring babies!

Spectacle at the Park

Tuesday night my husband and I had dinner in the park. We'd packed burgers, heated them up at the office, and then grabbed some fries from a nearby fast food place before heading to the park. This is a popular park in the warmer months. It's Lion's Park in College Place, and it's one of the best places to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon or a cool summer evening. As we ate, we watched these kids running around the stream. The boy in the yellow shirt and the girl in the pink had been wading, and were wet up to their waists. But all of them found something extra special to observe that night: A mama duck and her TWELVE ducklings. Tomorrow I'll show you a closeup of part of the little family.

Unique to Walla Walla

Though the gentleman who owns this bird (not pictured) doesn't live in the WWV any longer, he did live here for quite a while. He's here visiting his kids, and since my husband and I are friends with one of his sons and daughter-in-law, we happened to be visiting Saturday night when he stopped by with his famous parrot, Rascal.

Rascal is 12 years old and has lived with Danny and his family since the bird was 6 months old. I'm told he will live to be anywhere from 85-105 years old. Since most people don't carry a parrot around everywhere they go, Danny and Rascal have been in the local paper several times. Danny takes his bird everywhere. The bird is trained not to poop inside, and Danny knows when the bird needs to go and takes him outside. The bird also comes when he's called, responds to a sharp "NO!" and knows what "stay" means. He's a gentle bird and has only ever bitten one person - Danny's daughter-in-law, which Danny explains is because the bird is very jealous that she took away one of the bird's "boys."

On occasion, I have seen Danny shopping in a store with Rascal on his shoulder. I've also seen Rascal waiting outside a restaurant, perched on a newspaper dispenser, squawking at passers-by and scaring them to death! I've also seen Danny feeding Rascal part of his burger, and, my favourite, I've seen the bird clinging to the chains of a playground swing, while Danny pushes the swing back and forth. Rascal loves it!

Pictured here is one of Danny's other sons, cradling Rascal like a kitten. The bird doesn't care - he just lays there and enjoys having his feathers ruffled and his head and neck scratched. I actually got to hold this gorgeous animal, and felt very privileged.

All In a Row

We visited one of the areas many parks today, in an attempt to get rid of some old bread. The ducks here are usually quite happy to accept handouts, but they must have been fed earlier in the day, because they couldn't have been less interested in the scraps we tossed them. These male mallards appeared to be an inseparable trio. Though I missed getting a photo of it, just before this, they were all standing the exact same way, just looking at the water, but eying us discreetly. Finally we got too close for comfort and they all three plopped into the water and quacked disapprovingly as they paddled away from the shore into the safety of the pond. Ducks are plentiful in this area, but the only kind we really ever see in the valley are mallards. The females aren't nearly as colourful - brown and black, for the most part. The only colourful part is a purple band under their wings that matches the bands shown on these males' wings. I think the only water bird more plentiful than these in this area are the Canada Geese.

Workspace Visitor

This morning as I was working at my desk, I kept hearing chirping and singing. It sounded quite close to my window, so I watched for a few minutes. I wasn't disappointed. Within moments, a small bird landed on the electric wires under the eaves. When it flew away I quickly turned the blinds so I had a better view, pulled out my camera, and waited. Shortly thereafter, another one landed. I managed to snap a few shots before it took off again. After consulting my bird-wise husband and the North American bird book we have, I determined it was either a Violet-Green or Tree Swallow. Can anyone identify it for sure from this photo?

Quite a Scare

Disclaimer: This is going to be a longer post than usual because I'm telling a story. If you aren't interested in reading my commentary, the above creature is a western screech owl, common in the WWV.

One thing I love about the Walla Walla Valley is the wildlife. It isn't at all surprising to see hawks and herons anymore - though I still love to discover them. I've even seen a couple of bald eagles down by the Columbia River. Deer are quite common, too, especially in the warmer months in the evenings. With so many fields to explore and munch through, they are a constant sight while the crops are growing. While exploring in the hills and mountains surrounding the valley I've stumbled upon elk, as well, which was my first sighting of them in the wild. (They are large!) One thing that is difficult to sumble upon, however, is owls. Though they are common in the area, as stealthy, nocturnal animals, it takes a bit of looking and knowing where to do so to spot them. Last March we got an up close and personal glimpse of a western screech owl...purely by accident.

Our house has two wood stoves, and we only use one regularly. The one that is nelgected for most of the year doesn't have a cover on the chimney top. Apparently it is common for owls to end up in chimneys because they see a dark hole when it starts getting light, and they dive into it, hoping for shelter until night falls again.

That is exactly what happened last March. We were eating breakfast one morning and heard a faint scratching. Quietly approaching the chimney of our wood stove, we put our ears to the pipe and listened. We heard it again. I tapped on the metal. The scratching stopped. Two days in a row this happened, and we quickly determined what had happened.

One of the mornings, when my husband was still upstairs getting ready for the day, I heard a shuffle that was a bit louder than the scratching. I jokingly called up the stairs, "Hey, I think the owl fell into the stove. Hahaha!"

Emboldened by my joke and my husband's chuckle, I went to the stove and pulled open the doors.

There, sitting on the ash left from previous fires, was a grey and brown lump...with HUGE yellow and black eyes glaring at me. (See the above photo.)

With a gasp and an adrenaline-pumped squeal, I slammed the doors and called back up the stairs, "Um, heh heh...the owl actually DID fall into the stove, dear."

After a call to our local Audubon Society, a gentleman came to our house that same day and rescued the poor starving owl from the confines of our stove. Upon speaking with him we felt terrible for not calling sooner...we'd assumed (until he'd fallen in) that the owl was leaving at night to get food and simply coming back. Apparently...he wasn't. The poor thing was in our stove for nearly a week and could barely fly when he was set free. Fortunately the bird's rescuer assured us that he would be fine, since there was a field next to our house where he could eat before trying to fly elsewhere.

Isn't wildlife amazing?

Skywatch Friday

Though the composition of this photo could be better, this is the first time I've ever captured a bird of prey with my camera. Or any camera, for that matter! I wish I could have zoomed in more, but my little point and shoot won't get any closer than this. I believe this is a hawk, common to the valley, as the many fields provide plentiful feeding grounds for them. In the foreground is a nesting box - or what's left of it - a common sight in parks with acreage such as what surrounds Bennington Lake (see yesterday's post). For today's skywatch, we're watching not the sky itself, but what occupies it.

A Quick Shot

As we were driving down the road I saw a heron take off from a nearby pond. I grabbed my camera (which happened to be in my lap), turned it on, and my husband slowed down so we could try and capture its elegance. My camera is just a point-and-shoot, basically, so the zoom isn't as tight as fancy cameras that cost thousands of dollars. But I think this is my first shot of a bird in flight where you can actually tell what it is! These birds reside all over the WWV, since our land is quite marshy in some places, making for good feeding for the blue herons.

We're Still Here!

In spite of the colder weather and lack of camouflaging foliage, there is still some wildlife in the area. These beautiful birds were flitting around the branches and preening as I watched. I couldn't get close enough to see what they are...any bird experts out there recognize them? This is the same lake as yesterday's shot, but taken from another angle. This one is looking west.