Great Horned Owl!

Kind of a cool, dark, showery day…but a good day for birds just the same.

the water levels had receded enough for us to do our usual walk

just as many birds out there on the flats, but now they had room to spread out a bit more.

‘eagle trees’ at the viewing platform were well populated again..

a heron (Great Blue Heron) and a ‘Hoodie’ (Hooded Merganser) were two of the species right in close…

Here is just one small section of one of the ‘eagle’ trees…

got to the log bay for a different perspective..

water has dropped just enough to be offering good views of the Bald Eagles from that location.

also lots of ducks, here a mixture of Mallard and American Wigeon, and there were a total of 16 Swans and from the calls I know there were Tundra Swans out there as well as Trumpeter.

These two gull were in close…I’m wondering about the ID of them, especially the closer one.  Notice the long hook on the top mandible of the bill – also the bird looks like it might have been in an oil spill…

back along the trail at least one of those American Robins is still around.  There were also 2 Fox Sparrows in this same area.

Spotted a Belted Kingfisher out on one of the pilings…

and then, what the heck is that?

a Great Horned Owl!  You don’t often see them out in the day light.  I guess it was such a dark day he didn’t really notice this difference!