Columba fasciata: Bandtail Pigeons Revisited

A post such as this is surely to return annually, but only as long as its inspiration continues to return. I've been feeding these birds since the latter part of the last century. The first bird is usually in the tops of my red alder in early March of every year. This year was no exception. I saw the first one on the 12th. Okay. So that's late early March. Maybe even early mid March. You get the point. This year is different, though. Cuz I have the new picturer to freeze them. Thanks to Somewhere Joe, I have been able to slow the wings down a bit. The first captures were blurs. Thanks, Giusepp, for some good sharpening tips.

These work for me. My favorite pose is when the wings beat forward, nearly enveloping the body in a hollow hug. Next favorite is the bird whose elbows touch on the wild, slapping upbeat. I hope you enjoy their beauty as much as I do. What you can't "enjoy," however, is being woken up as hundreds of these birds explode off the tables in their ritual survival maneuver that is based upon the instinctive axiom, "Don't stay in any one place too long." As quickly as they jump up, they begin fluttering back down to the boards in drizzling layers of participation until once again getting "that uneasy feeling" and thundering off into the lower branches of the alder and Cascara sagrada.


Once again, here they are...

This was taken on April 19th at 0730 hours. It felt more like 7:30 in the morning, though.




They will stay in the higher branches of the alder for several hours. Then they move down to the lower branches of the Cascara.



The first thing I do every morning is take look through the skylight of the guest bathroom to see who might be lighting in the tree tops. This is what I get to see.



Here is a lucky shot---four birds in the forward wing beat, two in tandem and nearly perfectly synchronous.



This is what makes the thunder in the morning. Birds bumping into each other. Birds stepping on each other, adhering to the rubrics of panic. There could be a hawk. Or a bobcat. You can't be too careful. Every year I come home to some fresh blood on the table and tufts of feathers gathered on the ground in whatever areas of the lawn the prevailing breezes pushed them along until they came to their final resting place, never again to fly.



Then it's right back down for more of the glut.



The scare tactic worked. The bandtail kicks up a dusting of oiled sunflower in its wing vortices.



While the mature sport this beautiful green metallic plumage on their necks, this guy to the left clearly has pin feathers. Young bird? Repairing bird? Dunno. An anomaly I cannot explain. I found a pin feather on the board the other day and wondered where it came from.



We do not have blue jays here. There are scrub jays over in the Willamette Valley. We have steller's jays here, tufted heads and all. Voracious cleaner-uppers are they. Raspy songed opportunists whose beautiful appearance attempts to excuse them from their rudenesses.



And when the crows and the jays aren't around, these folks get a crack at some chow. I'll see your four pair. And raise you.