WINGSCAPES

Picture Perfect Squirrel

While there’s little disagreement that squirrels cane be a bane to practitioners of backyard bird feeding, it is sometimes (I said “sometimes”) quite difficult to put aside how charming they can be.

As the snow was falling steadily all day here in northwest Oregon, I took to throwing handfuls of seed on the ground for the thrushes, juncos, doves, and yes, the local population of Douglas’ Squirrels. The reward was not only some fine winter portraits of the local birds but a few Christmas card image quality squirrel pictures as well.

First Varied Thrush of the Season

As the temperatures in northwest Oregon dipped down into the teens (and even below), the chance of the Varied Thrushes making their winter migration down to the foothills was at its peak. Sure enough, at 2:37 PM, the first Varied Thrush of the season for our property was recorded by the Wingscapes BirdCam.

Regular readers will please excuse my erroneous previous prediction that the season’s first thrush would appear in a slightly different location on the property. The important thing is that they are now here and we are very excited indeed.