Festival of the Birds (and Dog)

Posted at 8:08 PM, Tuesday, May 13, 2008

As promised, Sarah and Max brought Andie to The festival of the birds in Sellwood Park on Saturday.


Andie helped Sarah greet visitors to the bird walk tent. Max and Sarah led bird walks while Andie monitored the list of birds seen.



Andie earned her green credibility at the City of Portland Environmental Services booth by signing up to be a "Dog for the Environment." She agreed to not chase wildlife and stay out of "no pet areas." In doing so, she was awarded a cute green bandanna.


She wore it with pride for the rest of the day.


After a long day of leading tours and greeting visitors, Sarah, Max, and Andie enjoyed beer, sandwiches, and dog treats at the Lucky Lab.


Finally, they checked out their garden plot at Fred and Maggie's house.


The little plants are growing well and Andie was happy to come along on all the day's adventures.

Andie's Weekend

Posted at 8:05 PM, Tuesday, May 6, 2008

On Saturday, Max and Sarah left Andie in the apartment while they led an epic Birdathon trip for Portland Audubon. Andie had a few nice visitors who gave her walks and treats, but she was really excited when Max and Sarah returned.

On Sunday, Andie had her revenge for being crated the day before. First, while Max was busy tending the compost bin at Wendy and Jerry's, Andie found the grossest substance she could find to roll all over her right side. This earned her an impromptu shower on the back deck, which was quite refreshing given the warm weather.

Next, Max and Sarah bought a bag of chicken manure to bring to Fred's house for the garden bed they are borrowing. While riding in the back of the car with the bag, Andie bit a large hole in the bag and ate as much as she could. It did not appear to bother her, as it passed without incident.

Finally, While Max and Sarah were gardening, Andie crawled into Fred's raised bed to get some shade from the raspberry bushes. Of course, she probably did not have revenge in mind this time, she only wanted to cool down, but in the process she squished some baby lettuce heads. Fair enough!

After a few foiled attempts, she resigned herself to lay alongside the bed but gave us a heavy glare.

We assured her that she will be able to come along with us on our next Audubon function this weekend, so all is forgiven.

Saturday at the Beach

Posted at 9:01 PM, Monday, April 28, 2008

Max, Andie, and Sarah surveyed dead birds at Sand Lake on Saturday.


As you can see, there was not much on the beach and we found no birds. Haystack rock can be seen behind the dog.



Here, Andie is standing in front of Cape Lookout.

After the survey, everyone returned to the beach house at Pacific City. Sarah labeled wires for light fixture istallation, Max removed English ivy and Himalayan blackberry from the hillside behind the house, and Andie supervised Max.



Andie and Max Climbed the hill many times and were ready for a good night's sleep by the end of the day.

Interactions with Andie

Posted at 8:11 PM, Thursday, April 17, 2008

Andie and Max visited Sarah's Grandparents on Thursday. As usual, Clark the cat was investigating Andie while Andie was trying to ignore him.
Andie finally met their neighbor Cinco, the friendly rotweiller that inspired Sarah and Max to adopt a rotty mix.

They were both a bit nervous at first.


Then they started to play!

After a bit of rough housing, Fred intervened. Cinco is about twice Andie's weight, so she Andie appreciated a little moderation.
Afterwards, Sarah and Max took Andie to the Hillsboro Dog Park. The grassy area is now open, which gives the dogs much more space to run.

Andie found a good group of dogs with which to run around and face-bonk.

After a few laps around the park, everyone returned home for dinner and a nap.

Andie's Day

Posted at 3:49 PM, Sunday, April 13, 2008

We have heard people complain that we have not updated the dog blog lately and it has been a slow couple of weeks for dog adventures, so we thought we’d share a typical day for the dog.

7:45: Max’s alarm goes off. Andie quickly runs to his side of the bed to make sure he does not go back to sleep.

7:50: Andie waits patiently by the door for Max to put his shoes on to take her for her morning walk.




8:05: Andy and Max return from their walk and Andie prepares for her favorite time of the day.

8:06: Breakfast!

8:30: Sarah says goodbye to Andie and Max and leaves for work. Max starts work at his desk and Andie starts her morning nap. She does not stir for the next two hours.

11:00-12:00: Andy wakes up and has a stretch. Max gets tired of typing, so they leave for her lunchtime walk.

12:30: Max and Andie return. Max towels off the wet dog and eats lunch, Andie has a snack and starts her afternoon nap.

5:30: Sarah’s home! Andie gets very excited, all three take a pre-dinner walk.

6:00: Dinner time for Andie. She eats her food then walks to the kitchen to sniff at whatever Max an Sarah are cooking.

8:00: Sarah, Max, and Andie go on her evening walk.

8:30-10:30: Andie enjoys her nighttime nap.

10:30: Max takes Andie for her last walk of the day while Sarah moves the dog bed into the bedroom.

10:40: Andie quickly falls asleep and dreams of chasing nutria and sanderlings along the beach.

Beach Weekend!

Posted at 8:17 PM, Monday, March 31, 2008

We went to the beach this weekend to get some much deserved rest following a tough week of Audubon Camp, colds, and paper-writing. We met members of the Turner Family to celebrate birthdays, especially Max's 30th!

Andie, Max, Sarah, Sarah's cousin Sydney, and Sydney's friend Alex surveyed dead birds at Bob Straub on Saturday afternoon. A few raindrops passed through, but all had a good time.

Sydney and Alex are now expert identifiers of Northern Fulmars, as we found 19 dead ones on the beach. We also found a Common Murre and parts of a pelagic cormorant we had previously counted.

At the end of the mile, we found six birds within a meter of each other! we lined them up and processed them as quickly as possible. Notice the worn-out assistant on the right.

On Sunday morning, Andie and Max went out for a dog jog and found themselves on a white beach!




Spring returned by the afternoon, and Andie, Max, Sarah, and Greta surveyed their second beach at Sand Lake. We only found seven fulmars at this beach and Andie dug for beach treasure.


In this case, the treasure was apparently crab claws which she rolled on, then ate despite commands to the contrary. They do not appear to have disrupted her digestion.


On Monday, we packed up, worked on the beach house, spotted a few birds at Whalen Island, and returned to Hillsboro.

Easter at the Beach

Posted at 4:12 PM, Sunday, March 23, 2008

Sarah, Andie, and Max left Hillsboro for the coast Friday afternoon for a relaxing weekend before a hectic spring break. On Sunday, they checked out the fishing boats and fishing birds in Garibaldi, spotted migrating gray whales at Cape Meares, and helped out with some beach house work in Pacific City.

Max and Sarah cleared exotic vegetation in the forest patch behind the beach house while Andie tried to find a comfortable spot to rest on the steep slope. After a few good hours of work, Andie was ready to relax at Annie and Joel's beach house at Rockaway Beach.

We had a great, late dinner Saturday night with Wendy and Jerry, featuring pasta, veggie sausage, and some great wine. On Easter Morning, Andie coaxed a reluctant Max out of bed for a beach jog.


Once they got to the beach, they noticed that the great spring weather of Saturday was replaced by clouds, rain, and wind.

The blowing sand irritated Andie's nose and eyes, so she elected to return to the house for breakfast. Sarah and Max cooked a potato and kale fritatta and some elk sausage. Wendy brought some baked goods from Rockaway and everyone enjoyed the Easter feast.

Andie at Audubon

Posted at 11:38 AM, Saturday, March 15, 2008

Andie and Max joined Sarah at her work on Friday. Andie likes spending the day in new places, but she growls at co-workers when she is laying in her bed. We try to assure her that her bed is safe, but she remains defensive.

Max and Andie took a walk through Forest Park in search of flowering trilliums. They saw a hermit thrush and heard a singing varied thrush, but did not find any trilliums in full bloom. Andie will try again to find them next week.

Balch creek was flowing fast and Andie did not care for a swim.


Though they did not find trillium flowers, Max and Andie were pleased to see salmonberry leafing  out.

Outdoor fun with dog

Posted at 2:34 PM, Friday, March 7, 2008

Andie is slowly becoming a fellow birdwatcher.


Here she is watching a mourning dove on the deck.



Andie has also surprised is by playing fetch! When at the dog park, she never showed interest in playing fetch with the others, so we assumed she was just not that into it.


The other day, however we were walking her through a park and she showed some interest in an abandoned tennis ball. On a whim, we gave it a toss and she tore off after it and brought it back!




She has a hard time slowing down to grab the ball and ends up tumbling over it. Though we've had Andie for over three months, she continues to delight us with unexpected behaviors.

Fernhill Trip

Posted at 8:32 AM, Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Sarah, Andie, and I enjoyed the great Sunday weather during a walk around Fernhill Wetlands.


A huge flock of gulls floated in the big pond. I tried to identify them all, but Andie was eager to explore the entire complex, so we moved on and found small groups of canvasback ducks and tundra swans. We returned to main pond, spotted a few more gulls, then moved on to run a few more errands.

Winter Vacation III

Posted at 4:16 PM, Sunday, February 24, 2008

We spent four days at Canon Beach in a great motel near the mouth of Ecola Creek. Lewis and Clark traded with Killamook Indians andfeasted on herds of elk in this area. Unlike the former, the later have been allowed to stick around.




We were again treated to summer-like weather. We took many beach walks with the dog and found many great live and dead birds.



This is the first intact fork-tailed storm petrel we have found. They are nocturnal and shy, so this is about the best look we can get.



We visited many sites such as hug point, where Sarah kept with the theme.



On the way home, we stopped to pay our respects to the Klootchie Creek Giant Spruce. The tree broke during the big wind storm on December 2nd. Much of the stump remains, and a few needles and cones still cling to the only branch left.

Now it’s back to work for us until the next vacation in September... Max's biology blog can be found here

Winter Vacation II

Posted at 10:54 AM, Sunday, February 24, 2008

On Tuesday, we drove north from Pacific City to Cannon Beach, looking for as many birds as possible in the bays along the way.



Our first stop was Sand Lake where we had our best look ever of a white-winged scoter and spotted a female common goldeneye.



Next, we hit Netarts Bay, my favorite, and it did not disappoint. We spotted a big raft of surf scoters, many more goldeneyes, plenty of common loons, pelagic cormorants, and a resplendent male harlequin duck.



We then drove up to Cape Meares and spotted several huge flocks of common murres, birds we usually don’t see in the winter. We walked down to the lighthouse to show Andie the great view and spotted the resident pair of peregrine falcons overhead.



The next stop was Tillamook Bay where Sarah took this great photo of  a heron. We drove along the entire bay and found a raft of brant, lesser and greater scaup, a tiny eared grebe, and a few canvasbacks.



At the north jetty, we marveled at the speed with which the tide water cruised out of the bay. Just north of the jetty, we spotted a black scoter bobbing in the surf. Our first life bird of 2008!



Our last stop was Nehalem Bay. As usual we did not see as many birds here, but we did notice many logs and stumps deposited by the last floods. We also saw a few more loons and gulls, and watched a happy golden retriever chase away a pair of Mallards.

We trucked on to Cannon Beach where more adventures waited. These will be shared in the next post.

Winter Vacation I

Posted at 4:16 PM, Friday, February 22, 2008

Believe it or not, this is winter weather at Pacific City! We conducted or dead bird surveys on Sunday and Monday and enjoyed some rare sunshine.


It felt as warm as the day we were married on the beach in August. It just goes to show how you can expect any weather at any time of the year at the coast. Andie enjoyed the surveys as usual and we found plenty of birds.




At Bob Straub, the weather started out sunny, then some dark clouds moved in from the north while the sun kept shining in the south, making for an amazing light show. The gulls, sanderlings, and dunes ful-out glowed against the dark backdrop.




Speaking of sanderlings, Andie gave us a big surprise by chasing one of the small shorebirds in a big circle along the beach. Despite the fact that the bird was flying as fast as possible with its long, pointed wings, Andie had a real chance of catching the bird if we had not called her back. We hope she has the chasing out of her system because we do not want her to interfere with out bird watching, let alone injure a bird.

At our two beaches, we found four northern fulmars, two glaucous-winged gulls, one common murre, one western grebe, one Brandt's cormorant, one western gull, and one short-tailed shearwater. 

After we finished our surveys, our vacation continued on to the north. More posts about the trip to follow....

Posted at 1:33 PM, Thursday, February 14, 2008

New Love For Doves

Posted at 10:49 AM, Tuesday, February 12, 2008

During the last two days, I have been working on mourning dove nesting data while viewing the same species on my deck. We finally refilled our feeders, so the birds have returned.

This pair spent the morning eating, stretching, preening, and, lets say, "bonding" on the deck.

Another well-illustrated nest sheet.


I must admit that, until recently, I had little respect for doves. Their small heads and bobbing gait made them look less intelligent than other birds. Species like mourning doves are often so abundant, that while birding, I often dismissed an individual on a wire as “just another mourning dove.” Mourning doves, or (MODOs for short) have never won marks in my book for nest craftsmanship either. Of all the nests I’ve viewed, MODO nests appear the most sloppily built and precariously positioned. They choose all sorts of inappropriate substrates such as large pieces of bark that dangle from a dead tree, waiting for to be dislodged by the next stiff breeze. Somehow, enough of their nests survive to keep the population afloat. Most nest fail, however, making me wonder how the species survives.

Since they started frequenting our small bird feeding deck, however, we have come to enjoy their company and laugh at their lack of modesty when, starting in winter and lasting through the fall, they perform their matrimonial rites in front of our sliding glass doors. We are also impressed with their surprisingly assertive nature. When the usually bold scrub jays show to hog the seed, MODOs often fluff out their feathers and hold their ground or charge the jay. They don’t win every confrontation, but they do retain their deck rights at least half the time.

This dove simply waited for the aggressive red-winged blackbird to get his fill of seed before reclaiming the dish for itself.


Now that I am analyzing a stack of MODO nest records for the Forest Service, I have a new found interest in this bird’s fascinating breeding biology. No other species that I have studied can nest as many times in a single breeding season. MODOs can complete a successful nesting attempt much faster that most birds their size. MODOs do not need to migrate as far as some birds to nest and they spend very little time building a nest. Both species incubate, never leaving the nest unattended. This allows no time for the eggs to cool and slow development. When the eggs hatch, they are fed cropmilk from both parents, a constantly available food source that takes no time to gather and bring to the young. When the nestling fledge, the male continues to make cropmilk and feed the fledglings while the female starts on her next nest. In some places this cycle occurs throughout the year, in others it extends from February to October, at my study sites in New Mexico, it occurs from March to late August.


The impressive nest-building rate of mourning doves helps the population to persist despite high mortality rates of nests, fledglings, and adults. My current project with the forest service examines the effects of fuel reduction treatments on MODO nest survival. I expect to find low daily survival rates at all plots, but if survival rates in fuel-reduced plots are similar to those of unmanaged plots, the MODOs populations should have no trouble surviving in alongside this management practice.

Finally, Model results!

Posted at 10:06 PM, Saturday, February 9, 2008

After three months of reading over datasheets, entering their data into excel files, double and triple checking the files, transferring the files to SAS, and passing them through various models, I finally have results! The computer on the right has the SAS output, and the one on the left is graphing the output. The results suggest that black-chinned hummingbird nest survival changes with nest height, tree species, and year. I am looking for effects of fuel-reduction treatments on riparian bird nest survival. It appears that increases in nest height result from removal of small trees and shrubs, thereby lowering nest survival. Very cool!



Andie is excited too!


I finally figured out how to calculate model-averaged parameter estimates, which is the last step in the nest survival analysis. Next, it is on to the mourning dove dataset.

Winter nests and dog walking

Posted at 1:40 PM, Tuesday, February 5, 2008

This winter has been colder and stormier than average, so the weathermen say. Andie and I go on at least four walks per day and to prepare for each walk, I put on long underwear, jeans, wool socks, a long-sleeved shirt, a short-sleeved shirts, a fleece pullover, my REI rain jacket, light gloves, and a hat (wool or ballcap). I have nothing against winter, but I look forward to the day I can leave the apartment in shirt, shorts, and sandals.

Most of our walks are through the newly constructed, upscale Orenco Station neighborhoods northwest of our apartment. The house are larger and more expensive than any we can ever afford and all of the trees are small and deciduous. Now that their leaves are off, I enjoy their odd symmetry and I search for old bird nests tucked into their limbs.


I recognize some nests from the summer when I observed them in action and wrote them up in my nest journal. The American Robin that built this nest included balloon ribbons in the material. At least one nestling successfully fledged around July 1st.




When I view most nests, however,  I wonder how I missed them when they were active.

 
  The trees and nests have inspired a new project, an attempt to recreate these great artworks assembled by natural (bird nests) and artificial (decorative trees) selection. During our walks, I photograph the nests and trees. When I return home, I paint a sky-colored background into my watercolor journal. Gray skies are my favorite to paint.

 I then sketch the tree and nest over the background and later paint over the sketch with dark watercolors. It is a technically simple process and provides the relaxation I enjoy from painting branches.



When spring arrives, I will be looking for more active nests to observe (without intruding on the nest behavior, of course) and record in my nest journal.

Raptor Road Trippin'

Posted at 5:19 PM, Saturday, February 2, 2008

We just returned from Raptor Road Trip, an event at Sauvie Island organized by Portland Audubon, Portland Metro, and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Sarah and I were stationed at Rentenaar Road, which I attempted to capture in this poor photo:


We set up shop at 9:00am in the midst of a heavy snowfall and it snowed or rained until we packed up at 2:00pm. Despite the weather, plenty of folks showed up and were treated to huge flocks of waterfowl, plenty of Northern Harriers, and a pair of Bald Eagles that remained perched on a snag during much of the day. The only one who did not fully enjoy the day was Andie because she had to stay home alone until her grandmother Wendy came for a visit. We are now hard at work restoring warmth to our extremities with the help of Obsidian Stout,

Here is a list of birds Sarah and I observed from our station:
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Tundra Swan
Canada Goose (Dusky subspecies)
Cackling Goose
Snow Goose
Mallard
Northern Pintail
American Wigeon
Green-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Bald Eagle (all immature)
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Sandhill Crane
American Coot
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Dowitcher
Herring Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Northern Flicker
Western Scrub Jay
American Crow
European Starling
American Robin
Song Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird

Other birds on Sauvie Island Included:

Double-crested Cormorant
Common Merganser
Western Gull
Dark-eyed Junco

January Beach Trip

Posted at 8:54 PM, Sunday, January 27, 2008

This weekend, we surveyed our two beaches for dead birds. As usual, Andie had a great time running on the beach and helping us spot the carcasses. We even enjoyed a rare beach snow storm at Sand Lake on Sunday morning.

Andie rests during a break in the rain at Bob Straub State Park. My duct taped rain boot is visible to her left. Haystack Rock and Cape Kiawanda are in the background



We try to standardize our search effort, so we try not  to let her spot birds that we would not normally find on our own. We have our doubts, however, if we would have come across this Leach's storm petrel wing without her help.

 



We also found three common murres, two western grebes, a Clark's grebe, a northern fulmar, and a pelagic cormorant.

Gullapalooza

Posted at 2:02 PM, Friday, January 25, 2008

Today I stopped by my favorite gull-watching spot, Amberglen Business Park. This was the largest flock I have ever seen there, standing on the ice, swimming in the open water, and lounging on the grass.


The following photos provide a good opportunity for long-distance id practice!