Winter is for the birds!

Winter brings all kinds of surprises in the form of strange birds popping up all over Oregon.

There have been reports of sea birds on the desert playas, and last week this was posted at Oregon Birds Online by Steve Dougill, past President of the newly formed East Cascades Audubon Society: "For the last couple of days a beautiful gray-headed junco has been coming to some scattered seed in our yard .... the white-throated sparrow continues, too. Yesterday at Tetherow Crossing there was a RB SAPSUCKER at the house near the crossing and a PEREGRINE circled over the valley."

Look carefully at your juncos; you may have one or two as well. They're knockouts from the southern Rockies.

So, why should I have been surprised when Betty Karnen, who lives way out near the end of Mt. View Road, called to remind me, "I still have that peacock in my yard!" If it had been a great horned owl, bald eagle, or a fieldfare from Siberia I wouldn't have been surprised, but the peacock was still alive after sheltering in a juniper tree at 10 below!

My fear about the peacock freezing it's tail off was unfounded, however, Stephan Perry, Betty's son-in-law, called to say it survived 10 below, and mentioned that when it first showed up, he and his wife, Sue, thought it was a peahen. Hmm... Maybe other things happen to birds in winter that I'm not aware of...

Then I remembered Bob and Gale Baker out on the Rimrock Ranch. They said they'd lost a peacock, and as the peacock flies, their outfit isn't so far from where Betty lives. So, why not their peacock?

Bob, Gale, my wife Sue, Betty and I got together Thursday of last week and solved the problem of the wayward peacock, who we all agreed, left Bob's place because it was lonely for a peahen. (Did you know that peacocks don't lay eggs? Peahens do...)

Just about the time I was thinking the strange winter bird business was tapering off, another call came in from a woman in Eagle Crest telling me about the abundant varied thrush population she had at her backyard this year, and the one that killed itself trying to go from one end of the house to the other through a window.

Believe it or not, that was just one of the many calls I've received about the Nugget story regarding the influx of varied thrushes this year, not to mention the e-mails; among them Carl Snyder of Camp Sherman, who spotted a strange varied thrush with white wing-bars and white belly. I thought it came from the far north or even Siberia. However, Tom Crabtree of Bend, the best birder I know, tells me it's a "partial albino."

The next day, Rick Judy out at Black Butte Ranch sent me a portfolio of great photos of wintering birds around his place, including a neat shot of a downy woodpecker hanging on a suet feeder. (If you want to be friends for life with birds in winter, hang a suet feeder out, but high enough to keep it away from deer and cats.)

Then my old friend - and super knapweed eliminator - Dave Culver, of Sisters, called me about a strange little owl in his backyard. Dave's "little owl," turned out to be a western screech owl. This time of year it could have been a saw-whet or northern pygmy owl. (There is one more little owl that nests with us in summer, the flammulated, who are now wintering in Panama.)

But Friday, coming out of the library was the best one yet. Darlene Kelm, who sings mezzo in the Sisters Chorale, passed me on her way in and with a wave and a big grin said, "Yellow bill, yellow legs, in my backyard!" I'm still wondering what that was.

This birds-in-winter-thing is underway; let's make the most of it and keep track of what we see. I received a call from Bill Kelly, who started talking about thrushes, but ended up telling me about his sighting of a huge, white arctic snowy owl he saw here in the winter back in '92. If you see one, please drop me a line if you want to share a new winter sighting: [email protected]

northwestnaturalist.net, or give me a call: 541-388-1659. It will help us all to get through the winter with something fun to do.