[obol] Birding in Grant & Morrow Co., Oregon

[mike denny]

Hello All,
This last warm week in the woods was spent up and down the Big Wall Creek 
and Wilson Creek drainages in northern Grant Co. north of Monument in the 
canyonlands of the John Day River basin. Aaron David and I hiked many steep 
mountains and located many unexpected species. Birds of note from the area 
are as follows.......

On 18 July atop some high basalt rim above the south fork of Big Wall Creek 
we flushed a lone adult Common Nighthawk from a nest. This bird performed 
distraction displays in an effort to lead us away from the nest scrape. Upon 
inspecting the nest I discovered that this committed adult nighthawk was 
defending a scrape with only one dead chick in it. This bloated chick was at 
least four days old and dead only a day, had been attacked and decapitated 
right in the nest scrape. The second chick was nowhere in sight though 
fragments of two eggs lay all about the scrape. Scattered about the nest 
scrape were at least five scat pellets and many tracks of a Bushy-tailed 
Woodrat. This is the first nest I have ever located implicating a pack rat 
as the predator of ground nesting bird chicks. This Common Nighthawks nest 
scrape was under the drip line of a western juniper about 15 feet from a 25 
foot high basalt rim facing to the south. I photographed the chick and the 
nest scrape.

on 19 July we located a single adult female White-headed Woodpecker atop 
Turner Mountain. This was the first and only White-headed after eight weeks 
of field work in this end of the Umatilla N.F.. This woodpecker species 
appears to be in decline despite thousands of acres of prime p-pine habitat 
searched.

On 20 July we located an adult male Belted Kingfisher just off the 2100 Rd. 
in Morrow Co. at a pond many miles and way up slope from any body of water 
with fish. After looking this quarter acre pond over we found out that this 
kingfisher was feasting on large Tiger Salamander larvae. How it located 
this pond is an unknown.

That's it for this weeks sights.
Later Mike



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Mike & MerryLynn Denny
1354 S. E. Central Ave.
College Place, WA  99324
509.529.0080 (h)

IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN BIRDING, YOU HAVEN'T LIVED!
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