[obol] Dog-day bird encounters of the non-pectoral sort

[Joel Geier]

Hello folks,

One observation I've made is that practically any OBOL topic -- whether 
curious bird behavior, details of shorebird ID, global climate change or 
whatever -- will result in one birder or another expressing annoyance 
after roughly 15 messages on the same thread. I suspect there is a 
"Universal OBOL Constant" which governs this, but I am too lazy to do 
the research.

To paraphrase The Curmudgeon, I suppose all this pecking about while 
facing down at one's keyboard tends to result in some "pectoral 
encounters" among list-serve members.

Anyway, the good news is that birds are providing us with new topics all 
the time.

Yesterday an adult HOUSE WREN showed up in our corn-and-squash patch, 
the first one in our two years here. Recent days have brought a 
MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER, another WILSON'S WARBLER (looked like an adult 
male but I am reminded that the genders are not safely separable in the 
field), and a WESTERN BLUEBIRD pair. This indicates some shifting of 
territories and/or post-breeding dispersal.

A couple of female/immature LAZULI BUNTINGS were still near the nest on 
3 Aug. I will beat The Curmudgeon to the punch this year by noting that 
departure dates for this species and BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK (not seen 
here in several days) are not well known, but seem to happen during Aug 
and earliest September.

Elsewhere around Benton Co., Doug Robinson found a couple of BANK 
SWALLOWS at the Philomath sewage ponds a few days back. We had a belated 
but pretty credible-sounding report of a SUMMER TANAGER visiting a bird 
bath at a private residence in Corvallis during the hot spell two weeks 
ago, but the bird seems to have been a one-day wonder.

So, plenty of bird activity is going on. If that isn't enough to get you 
outside, well, please consider looking into the Universal OBOL Constant 
theory and letting us know how it holds up.

Cheers,
Joel

P.S. "Here" is near E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area, n. of Corvallis in Benton Co.

P.P.S. On the non-bird, non-birder front, I turned up a SOUTHERN 
ALLIGATOR LIZARD while scything some grasses and Queen Anne's lace on 
the upper part of our lot today. That would not impress our 9-yr-old 
neighbor kid and budding herpetologist who seems to be able to find them 
whenever he wants -- and who purposely confirmed my advice that they 
have a nasty bite, by offering the lizard a finger which the lizard 
quickly latched onto. However, it is the first one that I have found on 
my own without help of a 9-yr-old kid, which, as Mike Patterson has 
noted, represents the peak age for herping ability in our species.

--
Joel Geier
jgeier at attglobal.net