Disturbing incident

Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that unfortunately, what is witnessed down at the estuary, isn't always good and often involves dogs, or to be more correct, irresponsible dog owners.  I am a dog owner myself and I have often argued, and am living proof from the photos in this blog, that it is entirely possible to walk a dog in a sensitive habitat and not cause any disturbance....it just requires some common sense, a bit of training and a thing called a 'leash!'

This afternoon I was at first frustrated when I witnessed a dog owner with two dogs running loose all along the foreshore and in the water where we all know the salmon are now spawning, I was then infuriated when this same owner started urging one of the dogs to 'get the fish', there was much shouting as the dog was worked up into a frenzy attempting to 'get the fish'.  How can someone be so irresponsible!  I was so disgusted I just turned around and went back home - there would be nothing to see anyway.

Now to the good news....it was late in the afternoon when we made another walk attempt....

you can see the beautiful weather continues, we've seen none of the fog that they are getting closer to the coast.  You can't make it out in this photo but there were all kinds of gulls on those ever growing gravel bars out there.

with the disturbance no longer happening along the foreshore, the birds were coming back...this was one of a number of Killdeer....

a few were snoozing in the last rays of sunshine.

a pair of, I think 'Greater' yellow-legs Sandpiper were running around....

and a Great Blue Heron was happily fishing....a Wilson's Snipe flew past as I took this picture.  The sun was already behind the mountain....

so this is a lousy picture but shows that the Bald Eagles were active and feeding on spawned out salmon...I didn't want to disturb the heron by going closer for a better angle!