Before I get into today….the consensus is that the ‘puzzle’ bird from yesterday is a female Blue Grouse. The puzzle now is what it is doing here? Blue Grouse do live in this general area, but are usually found up at higher elevations – places like Manning Park for instance. Maybe with all the snow and the cooler temperatures delaying snow melt, some have had to move down to lower elevations.
Today is one of the nicer days we’ve had and a good time to show this area as, with the rising water, we will start using this, our ‘boat launch’ as a measuring tool. Notice the white post – that post is 7 feet high. In 1997 the water came to within about 6 inches of the top…and was almost that high again in 1999.
the base of the boat launch with the present water level.
when you start seeing that ‘scum’ on the water…that is an indication of ‘snow melt’…
water levels held stable over night….
what was apparent today was the lack of birds, at least as compared to the past few days….migrants, like the Warblers and Ruby Crowned Kinglets plus a lot of the juncos and sparrows must have taken advantage of the favorable weather to continue on their way. American Goldfinch were heard singing from one end of the park to the other….I’ve left this picture uncropped so you can see how much fun it is to find these guys in amongst the new leaves!
With the sunshine there were lots of Tree Swallows about…this piling attracts them not only to the nesting box but also to a hole near the top.
lastly, I had been determined to get a good picture of one of the Gold Crowned Sparrows that have been around the last few days. I always think they look so great with the yellow dandelions as the yellow on their forehead is the exact same shade. It is a good job I managed this picture late yesterday because today they seem to have all moved on!
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