More Purple Martins

Monday we took the canoe out again....

it may look like there is a lot of water out there but look closer and you can see the bottom...in fact we grounded out quite a lot.  However in this spot which is the first bay we spooked a very large.....

Beaver!  you can just make out the brown body there under the water.

Here he is again after showing his displeasure with a vigorous tail slap!  It seems we have quite the population of Beaver now as the following morning a friend was out kayaking in another spot and saw a pair with 3 young. 

But again, the exciting thing was...

seeing lots more activity at the Purple Martin boxes!  In fact there were a total of 4 very young (2 above) fledgling still being fed by adults.  So these are in addition to the young ones we saw when we were out there a few weeks ago.

here is another youngster with another adult.  This is good news as it means that this year has been the most productive yet for this colony.  I've heard that there is a possibility that some more nest boxes may be put up in the area which is great news.  The big concern is that the existing pilings are getting so rotten they may not last another year.

it was really rough out there so once again couldn't get everywhere we wanted to go.  I had really hoped to see some shorebirds but again, not a single shorebird to be seen.  I've checked back and normally we are seeing them by the beginning of August and we are half way through already.  There were quite a few Canada Geese out there....some way off in the distance.

we did notice quite a few gulls.  Most too far off to get a good look at.  These 2 were part of a flock of 11 - I think, with the long swept back wings, they must be California Gulls.  There was only 1 adult, the rest were young ones.

getting to be a lot more ducks out there too.  Pretty much all Mallard...you can see that these ones are just starting to get a greenish sheen to their heads after molting out of their breeding plumage, into their 'eclipse' plumage and now starting to molt back into their familiar plumage.

and of course there were a number of Bald Eagles out there.

Now in my last post I said that it looked like the Black-headed Grosbeak had left.  While I was wrong....

there are still a lot of them around, especially young ones.  It must have been a very successful year.