By Donna Wiench, Portland Audubon On an early June morning, I joined a recently retired Portland Audubon colleague, Pam Meyers, for a walk at Tualatin Hills Nature Park. It was a beautiful, partly-cloudy, early June day, warm...
Read MoreBy Donna Wiench, Portland Audubon The first time I went to Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve southwest of Hillsboro, was for an Audubon Society of Portland Birdathon outing. It was 7:00 am and raining hard. Still, without leaving...
Read MoreBy Donna Wiench, Portland Audubon It seems that nature has conspired to make babies of all kinds uniquely precious and appealing to us human types. Seeing a vulnerable baby we oooh, aaah and if there’s a need, eagerly lend a...
Read MoreBy Donna Wiench, Portland Audubon Before going to work for Portland Audubon two years ago, I liked watching birds, but hesitated to put a feeder outside my window. Why make birds dependent, I mistakenly thought. Fortunately, at...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris Part of the fun of bird behavior is figuring out why they do the perplexing things they do. Take “mobbing,” for example. Mobbing is a coordinated swarming technique employed by some birds, like crows, to oust...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris On her first visit to our Beaverton place, my then 95-year-old mother wasted no time identifying the birds we’d attracted to our balcony with their favorite foods. (Mom used the same trick to keep her six children...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris You may remember reading a few months ago about Beaverton’s friendliest bird, the downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens), and maybe you’ve noticed this little guy at your feeder lately. Or have you? The downy...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris Encounters with wild animals? Sounds dangerous! But it happens daily here in Beaverton, thanks to the large number and variety of birds that share our trees, decks, yards and balconies, or would like to, depending...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris Remember the term “onomatopoeia” from your English classes of yore? It’s the name given to a word that sounds like the thing it describes. Rude people slurp and the ruder ones burp. Cats say meow and dogs say...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris Uh-Oh. In spite of coupons from the Beaverton stores that carry them and my affection for our avian diners, I ran out of suet cakes recently. Fortunately, I’d heard they can be made at home using pantry staples...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris No matter what time of year it is in Beaverton, suet feeders are woodpecker magnets. If you add an upside-down feeder (that foils the starlings), you will likely be introduced to the smallest – and friendliest...
Read MoreBy Anne Harris Our dog was at his usual post this morning in front of the back deck slider watching “Squirrel-Vision,” a show we produce here in Beaverton just for him. For peanuts. Really. We provide peanuts and Mr....
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