Another kind of bird

I guess the most notable thing about today was this…

out on the flats.  They appeared to be practicing take offs and landings as it landed 3 times while I was walking…

there is some controversy as to how much harm the frequent air traffic we are experiencing is actually doing…at least one ‘expert’ feels that the kayakers are causing more harm than the airplanes..

I watched with interest to see what happened when the helicopter circled over the log bay – it was at a good height…a couple of the Bald Eagles that had been feeding here left, but two more stayed put.  The Gulls rose up but then quickly settled again.  The birds that seemed most perturbed with each flight were a group of Northwestern Crows…they became very agitated and flew to another area each time.

apart from the ‘big blue bird’, it was a good day for eagles – not as many out on the flats, although there were numbers of them scattered everywhere, but lots of them in all the trees…these the ‘eagle trees’ by the viewing platform..

and these ones down by the golf course..

back in the log bay area these two were busy feeding, with more further along the shore..

another one joining the scene…

those are all gulls in this section…

this one of many who just sat and watched us walk by…

over at my end, on the way back, I was just a little too far away to get really good pictures of this scenario but it appeared that this Bald Eagle was determined to haul a still living salmon to shore…

here it looks like he’s just about made it…

but no…with a few agitated slaps the Salmon heads off upstream!

One more  observation made today.  As I feed the birds in my yard year round, I have a number of feeders, one of them is just a clay plant saucer that sits on the ground under a cedar hedge, on the other side of a fence because my dog thinks that bird seed is cereal…this feeder is meant for ground feeding birds like sparrows, towhees etc.  Besides birds I have a number of native Douglas Squirrels that also feed at my feeders…

Today, one of those squirrels was busy ‘pruning’ one of the large native cedar trees and bringing the cone filled tips down and placing them in this feeder.  I don’t know if it thought it was hiding the seed in the feeder or adding food to the ‘winter stash’ – found it interesting anyway!