Backyard bonanza

It was a good back yard bird day! Real quick, let me show you all these great birds I spotted in the span of a couple of hours here at our Tigard oasis. Then I’ll get back to the sailboat cruise on the Willamette River that I promised in my last post.

It’s lucky to catch her here. They can see me easily through the glass.

She prefers the back side, like this, to hide from me.

Here’s the male, poking his head around to check me, in between sips. It’s just so cute.

I spotted a Dark-eyed Junco in one of our new raised beds. It left immediately so I couldn’t get a shot in focus.

I spotted a flash of red, and saw these two right behind the Junco. I’m pretty sure these are House Finches.

After the finches left, I went back to looking for the Junco, because I knew my photo wasn’t in focus.

Birds, yes. Lucky shot: no. Hi my sweeties! The two white ones are Lavender Wyandottes.

I turned to the other window, near a rock wall and some rock steps. I saw a flash of yellow this time.

A Lesser Goldfinch pair, worrying the lavender seeds.

This beautiful boy has a feather coming adrift at his shoulder.

He looks good with the lavender flowers.

What a find! But where was that Junco?

Spotted him! At least I think it’s the same one. Again blurry.

I waited for the Junco to hop back into the light, and caught an exchange of food with a baby!! Right in front of me, peacefully settled on the low stone wall, waiting for its dad, a juvenile Junco let me take its photo.

Sleepy and content and trusting. This little one gradually settled lower onto the rock to wait.

Adult Junco hopped around, busily collecting some kind of bits from the ground, then before I could get another shot: whoosh! Both of them vanished. My camera was already pointed at the spot, and so I got a photo I never would have otherwise.

A Norwegian rat. They flourish here, and eat the chicken food but otherwise don’t bother us much.

Well, now that they are away from the house they don’t bother us much. They are excellent tunnelers! And when our hens lived right next to the house, a macrame web of underground tunnels also developed beside and under the foundation of the house. We moved the hens to the back of the yard, and the tunnels moved there instead. Tunnels 80 yards from the house we can live with.

I have tried and tried to photograph the rats, but they are QUICK. This is my first good shot of a whole beast, just before I lost it behind the window frame.

That was it for some time. I went back to working in my office. But a bit later, I went out to the bed swing on the patio to read a book, and spotted one last silly bird. The image is bad because I was in maximum zoom on my phone, but you can see what I saw. A fat American Robin just plopped onto the fence and soaking up the late day sun.

Looking around while flat on his belly. So cute.

I hope you enjoyed this bird break! Have a lovely Wednesday!

One thought on “Backyard bonanza”

Lou Carreras says:

July 29, 2026 at 1:30 pm

There are some relatively biosafe rodent repellents. One is made from concentrated peppermint oil, and the other from rotted egg whites, cloves, and some other stuff. They are good to use around foundations and just make the area unattractive to the rodents. Most of the other stuff is pretty toxic.