Phenomenal!

It’s been many years since I’ve seen such a concentration of bird life as there was out there today

I walked down mid-morning, the water levels had come up a bit since yesterday and the amount of Bald Eagles and Gulls out there was truly amazing.

Due to water over the path I couldn’t walk very far…so this is a distant shot of the eagles in the two ‘eagle’ trees by the viewing platform..

any semi dry area sported numerous eagles and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were something like ten thousand gulls out there…astonishing!

it wasn’t just birds…there are still lots of live Salmon, in fact there were Salmon constantly jumping right out of the water…

in the park itself this one particular Cedar Tree was literally dripping with Pine Sisken…had to be at least a hundred…difficult to photograph but this gives you an idea…I scanned the flock to see if I could spot any Redpolls amongst them, but didn’t see any.  So far the Siskens are sticking to the natural food supply although one did come to my sunflower seed feeder this afternoon.

mid-day I ventured down again…more Bald Eagles…this one just coming in for a landing…

Just as many Bald Eagles out there, the bigger white lumps are Swans, presumably Trumpeters but even with the binoculars I couldn’t say for sure…

In the area between where I was and the first bay, there were at least 18 Common Merganser and then just a little bit out from them a flock of about 40 Common Goldeneye…I wish I could have gotten a bit closer for a better picture but the water on the path was just a bit too deep.  By tomorrow, if it stays cool and dry, it should be passable again – but will the birds still be there!

Great Blue Heron as well, saw a total of 4 of them…

and, for the first time in a while..Canada Geese…I just caught them in flight (those little dots), they had been on the water but before I could get a picture someone decided to go for a walk ‘off trail’ and they all took off.

There were lots of Bald Eagles in close as well, in fact I can’t ever remember so many eagles staying in all the trees at the edge of the estuary.  These ones were in a Poplar tree right beside the parking lot at our boat launch, and stayed there despite numerous people and dogs walking by them.

 

 

 

 

This pair of young ones were particularly co-operative for pictures..

 

 

 

Here is one of them on his own…I’d have to look up in my book to be sure, but I think this would be a 4 year old as it seems to be getting it’s white head and tail.

 

 

 

and I’ll end with one more look at some of the eagles and a female Mallard swimming past.

I will mention, for those interested in such things and that, like me, don’t own a bunch of expensive camera equipment…I used 3 different cameras today… My Canon Powershot with 20 x optical zoom, a Nikon with 36 x optical zoom, and my Pentax SLR with a 300 mm lens…..the one that took the best pictures – the Canon Powershot.