Girls' Night Out

Several of my grandgirls, our community binoculars, and I went on a bird walk last week in the early evening at the site of the old Whitman Mission.  Lovely afternoon with just a hint of fall in the air.  We and about two dozen others including several children were escorted by a naturalist and introduced to the possibilities of sighting migrating birds in our area, the Walla Walla Valley and Columbia Basin.  We did see some Canadian Geese and Wood Ducks in flight overhead but none settling down for the night.  On the ground at some distance was a black heron, a pheasant, and any number of magpies.  We could hear an owl, some songbirds, and quails wrestling each other as they settled in for the night.  And, Blackbilled Magpies.  Magpies for whatever reason do not get much respect.  They do at time raid the nests of other birds but not often.  They are quite common and belong to the same family of birds as the crow.  Many people don't like them, I do.  The girls collect their long attractive feathers.

Our guide pointed the Magpies out to us telling us that they served an important service much like their cousins the crows and ravens.  They are scavengers and they clean up what others have left behind, roadkill, leftover fast food, dead critters in the wild.  He told us something new to all of us.   Magpies build large nests each year that take them about 40 days to construct and they abandon them after the chicks fly off and build new ones in the following season.  The old nests are used by owls who, we were surprised to learn, do not build their own nests ever, not a stick.  If it weren't for magpies and hawks, crows, and herons our lovely owls would have no place to raise their young.  Owls do it turns out do sometimes toss the current residents out (or eat them) and use the nest. Sort of a hotel room with a mini-fridge.

It was getting dark and we could see a gorgeous sunset happening through the skinny clouds, very red through the ever present stubble burn smoke and dust from the surrounding wheat fields.  We scurried off a little early, we were late for a family dinner but we had seen most of what we came to see.  What a wonderful evening walking around the fields planted with the rye grass that used to grow all over here naturally.  We also saw a turtle nest.  There is an old mill pond here inhabited by turtles. Some turtle mom laid her eggs right next to a portion of ruts belonging to the old Oregon trail that goes through the Mission grounds here.  The naturalists have built a screened cage around it to protect it from predators.  We will go back to watch it progress, maybe we'll be lucky enough to see the babies.