Male of the Species

Yesterday and today, one beautiful male hairy woodpecker. We put out some suet to entice him and his mate. Have also seen magpies and gray jays coming to the suet, but that's ok, we are just glad to have customers and an occasional more exotic sighting.

Night Sounds

Last night, around 10 PM, cold temperatures and clear skies, moon shining, we heard two great horned owls hooting back and forth. The owls were probably two blocks away, and when we first heard them, we thought we might be imagining their hooting. But when I went to the window, I could hear them clearly. It was magical, stars, moon and owls.

Backyard and Elsewhere

This afternoon/evening, we saw a female hairy woodpecker, maybe she's the one we've been hearing drumming on the trees. I don't know if females and males both drum.

We traveled to Anchorage and saw probably 2 dozen swans here and there, Potter's Marsh, the various smaller ponds between Portage and Girdwood, and also on the water south of Portage. Also a lot of mergansers and probably other waterfowl on the Kenai River directly downstream of the lake.

The Moose River has a few small open water areas where the swans and other waterfowl have gathered again during the day, our Sterling friend reports. He also reported a boreal owl encounter, as he was sitting outside on their deck with their new pet, a very small kitten. Both the owl and the pussycat were interested in each other, and the owl apparently did not worry too much about the human holding the kitten. As of this writing, both the owl and the kitten have retired to their corners. We hope the kitten continues to grow up interested in mice, as our friends have a lot of mice in their woodshop, and leaves the boreal owl and other avian creatures for the beings with binoculars.

Something New

We had an authentic sighting of a brown creeper today, amidst a little flurry of chickadees and nuthatches to the feeder system. Also saw a group of about 5 gray jays that were quite contentious and drove each other away from the food or water.

Our Sterling friend told us that during the night the thousands of ducks, geese, and swans disappeared. This morning the Moose River had ice on it. It was 15 degrees there, 18 here.

Neighbor's Bird

This afternoon, a neighbor from across the road, told us about a long-billed dowitcher that had been in their neighbor's backyard. This neighbor with the backyard, has a grassy, open lawn, and the edge of it is the bluff extending down to Cook Inlet. The dowitcher was in the backyard poking its bill up and down "sewing machine" style, as if it were walking around in a wetlands. This happened about a week ago, so this dowitcher might be a late-stayer, as I would imagine most shorebirds have gone south, at least as far as Homer.

We have seen some waterfowl out on the Kenai River Flats this past week, as there were some extremely high tides and the flats have been flooded several times. We did not take the time to look at them with binoculars.

In our yard today, we were once again visited by a spruce grouse, who made his/her way down our boardwalk and then flew to a spruce tree and sat there long enough for me to see him/her, after I returned home.

Freezing almost every night, and possible snow in the forecast. We heard that there are "millions" of swans on the upper Moose River.

Knock Knock

This morning, we heard very distinct woodpecker knocking-pecking in the trees near us. We walked around looking with binoculars but did not see anything. It was very rhythmical and long-drawn-out. And hollow sounding as well. I saw two likely candidates, two dead spruce a ways away, but from where we stood, no sign of a bird. We did see a female hairy woodpecker a little while back, so we know there are some woodpeckers around. We just haven't seen many in our backyard lately.

Other than the woodpecker, other birds lately have been our fall-early winter birds, boreal and black-capped chickadees, nuthatches, gray jays and steller jays. An occasional magpie, a few pine siskins. One redpoll. Our Sterling friend reports pine grosbeaks and swans. Seems exotic compared to our meager sightings lately. Always thankful, though, for the chickadee and nuthatch calls. They are faithful customers.

Fall Sighting

Today, very fallish feeling outside, the windy days of the past week have brought most of the leaves down. We had three spruce grouse in our trees outside my studio window. We would never have seen them if it hadn't been for the one that I saw on the ground, right by our fire ring. It walked into the grass, and by the time I called my husband to come look, there were three in the spruce tree overhanging the fire ring. They are so camouflaged, very difficult to see. And beautiful.

Late Summer and Early Fall

This evening a friend of ours told us about a trip north to Fairbanks, and how he saw flocks and flocks of sandhill cranes wending their way southward, he estimated about 2000-3000 cranes.

Late this afternoon we were visited by a female hairy woodpecker. It rained most of the day, and the bird activity was minimal. We did see a red-backed vole on top of one of the feeder stations, and that is encouraging because a healthy vole population often results in owls in the early winter.