as I mentioned before, this area is all part of the same I.B.A. (Important Bird Area) as the Chehalis Estuary but it does give you a different perspective and because there is deeper water here - the Harrison River runs right near the shore - you often see bird species here that we would rarely see up at the estuary.
and here is a good example....this is just one small section of the Trumpeter Swans that were out there...there might have been a few Tundra too but they were too far to positively ID - those I have zoomed in on appear to be Trumpeters. The dark birds in the foreground are Double Crested Cormorants....I can see a Canada Goose here as well and various ducks...haven't taken the time to figure out just what kinds yet.
and here is another area of the bay, just showing the incredible number and variety of birds out there....lots of Canada Geese in this one, a few Bald Eagles and of course various gulls and ducks...
but perhaps the most exciting find was this Western Grebe! I'm not sure if Western Grebe are actually endangered but if they aren't they are certainly getting close to being. This is not the first sighting of them in this I.B.A., about 12 or 14 years ago we had an extreme weather event in November that brought water levels up to summer levels and there were 4 or 5 Western Grebes that showed up...this time, this one seemed to be all by itself.
there were also a number of Common Loon out there, at least I think they were all Common Loon but not really sure about that as they seemed to be in varied plumage...I think possibly some were young ones while ones, like the one in the middle was an adult taking it's time molting into winter plumage.
of course there were also some of the species you'd expect to find like this Great Blue Heron....
and other's like this Pileated Woodpecker, you wouldn't exactly 'expect' but that showed up, right in the campground....and that will do for tonight...I'll post some more tomorrow.
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