WA Park, Burrow's Overlook Birds

This morning (4/9/2010) I took my usual early morning weekday walk in Washington Park with a friend. We stopped at the Burrow’s Island overlook and it wasn’t long before I spotted a Townsend’s Solitaire in the top of a small fir tree. I had other plans for the morning but it was a beautiful sunny day so I returned about noon to see if it might still be there and I might be able to obtain some photos of it. There was a strong wind blowing from the west and I correctly figured my chances of seeing the bird were substantially diminished. I was right… it was nowhere to be found. However this is at least the third year one has been in that area and I’ll keep my eyes open on future walks.

While we were in the area a swallow flew overhead but didn’t land. This area has been an attractive one for swallows for several years and I imagine it won’t be long before a few are sitting in the trees.

While in the area I obtained some good photographs of an American robin which kept following me. I was wearing a faded orange jacket and the bird probably thought that I resembled its mother! There were a pair of Dark-eyed juncos (Oregon race) in the area and they were only a couple of hundred feet from where a pair had nested under a fern about three years ago. I managed to photograph one bathing in a puddle. Pishing brought up a beautiful Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon’s race) in full breeding plumage, but it left before I could get a photo when a woman came down the road walking her dog.

I later managed to photograph a Ruby-crowned kinglet, but as is often the case in photography I encountered a problem. The kinglet had a prominent shadow across its head cast by a stick.

And last, but certainly not least in size, a sub-adult Bald eagle came flying over the overlook.