Hello from Portland

Columbia River Gorge

Hello readers! Unfortunately, I left my CF card reader home so I can't post any close-up bird shots, but we did take plenty of them so far. We have our other camera and a reader for that built into the laptop, so I can share some of those. So far, we've really enjoyed our 4 days in the Portland area. The town itself is amazing with great restaurants, breweries, an incredibly eco-conscious and friendly community, great scenery, and easy access to everything. The surrounding area is gorgeous too. I can't do it enough justice. We also greatly enjoyed an afternoon birding with the Born Again Birdwatcher. He and his family hosted us for a delicious dinner and some enjoyable conversation (with Swainson's Thrush and Stellar's Jays in the yard, among others);. I'll give some more detailed highlights of our trip in future posts. We're off to wine country tomorrow.

For those of you wondering, we have seen many birds and I have two life birds so far: American Dipper and Hermit Warbler.

They have donuts with bacon on them in Portland. Amazing. Seriously.

Moo

A "lovely" female Brown-headed Cowbird eating a juicy carpenter ant. I have a friend who tried as hard as possible not to see a cowbird at the start of each new year. I think his record is sometime in late March.

Prepping for Oregon

Beth and I are headed to Oregon on Saturday for 8 days of Pacific Northwest vacationing. It is an extremely needed vacation since my job has been taking up 95% of my time. We've had very little time for the two of us because of that. We'll be visiting Portland for 4 nights, the Willamette Valley (wine country) for 2 nights, and then finishing up along the coast. We'll be meeting up with the Born Again Birdwatcher to do some birding which should be a great time. We'll probably post some pics along our journey, so keep an eye out for them.

"Opposable Chums" Available for Purchase

I'm excited to report that Opposable Chums, the documentary about the World Series of Birding, is now available for purchase. I purchased my copy.

The Image of a Birder

I saw this pop-up ad today while browing the web. Let me start by saying that I have no problem with more "senior" women birders. I know many and call them my friends. I just thought this image shows us that very stereotypical image of a birder and it gave me a good laugh. That's a sweet Questar scope she has there!

American Copper

The American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) is a butterfly that packs a lot of beauty into its quarter-sized frame. You can even see its banded antennae here. I like these photos because it looks like the butterfly is standing next to snow or that it's a giant butterfly standing on a wooded, snow-capped mountain. I took these on Saturday at the World Series of Birding. American Coppers are frequently encountered flying low over the ground. One of their host plants, Curly Dock, is abundant there.

Our World Series Team in NJ Monthly Mag

We had a reporter/birder from NJ Monthly magazine tagging along with us most of the day on Saturday. Here's the article which also has a link to a video of our leader calling a Barred Owl. I think the back of my head makes an appearance once.

We also had a movie crew following us for a good part of the day. More on that in a future post.

My Little Buttercup

I took this photo of a Buttercup on Sunday. I'm not sure what species it is. It had this cool little flower fly perched on it that I'm working on an ID for too. (Update thanks to BugGuide: it's likely Toxomerus marginatus, a type of Syrphid fly.)


Here's the fly blown up.

And for those of you who were willing to scroll down and read more. Here's what I think of every time I see a Buttercup. Enjoy the video.