the reason for the calmness was a shift in the weather pattern, the westerly breeze we've had for weeks now had let up, that of course allowed some of the smoke from the interior wildfires to invade the area.
this time we headed directly across to the log jam at the edge of the Harrison River. Usually there is a lot of activity there, but apart from a few Canada Geese didn't see anything and the water levels were still a bit high so none of the gravel bars were available yet for a landing and water flowing so swiftly couldn't hang around.
once again there were at least 4 Bald Eagles in various spots....all adults, have yet to see a 'this season's' juvenile.
for interests sake it is kind of interesting to see how delicate the balance is here in this area with civilization encroaching onto the estuary although hopefully, this is as 'civilized' as it will take. The above is this eagles view to the west....
and there is the eastern view along the shore of the river....
but lets get back to more pleasant subjects....we were headed to the branch of the Chehalis we normally head up when I spotted 2 birds perched in a tree...
one quickly flew but the other stayed....even with binoculars I couldn't quite make out what it was, only that it wasn't one of the normal subjects....
turns out it is a Western Kingbird !.....only the 2nd time in 20 years I've seen one here at the estuary.
A little further along...there was a lot of bird activity....
several families of Barn Swallows (adult at top, fledglings below)....not as many or as exciting as the 'nursery trees' we've seen other years when there were fledglings of many different swallow species..
but nice to see never the less as Barn swallows are a species of concern.
In the same area....
there were more Red-wing Blackbirds than we've seen for sometime. The above 2 being juveniles.
and the theme of 'juveniles' continued....
with a young Mallard....(a bit further up the river we flushed about 20 Mallard from out of the grasses....mainly juveniles but saw at least 1 male in his 'eclipse' plumage)
and then it was young Hooded Mergansers....this one was perched on a log but there were at least 3 or 4 more slipping in and out of the grasses...
Everywhere along the route there were bird calls but trying to spot them in the bushes was another thing....heard many Marsh Wren, and Pied Bill Grebe....
one of the 'commonest' call's was that of the Common Yellowthroat...I'd seen movement and just pointed the camera in that direction....you can just make out the yellow head and black mask...
when we put ashore for a bit of a break....
we managed to really upset a pair of Song Sparrow....they obviously had a nest, probably
a 2nd or even 3rd hatching near by....so we didn't stay long.
was pleased to see that the Gray Catbirds must have had a successful nesting season as there were about 5 of them in this particular alder tree. Of course not sure how many pairs actually nest in the area....
We had been wondering why we hadn't seen any spotted sandpipers or....
Common Merganser....when we saw this female with I think, 7 young ducklings. She kept well ahead of us so this was about as good a photo as I could get.
Didn't see an Osprey either which was a little strange as they have been so vocal and active the past little while, however, when we were loading the canoe back on the truck we did hear one so guess they were just fishing elsewhere for a little while. Hard to believe but in another couple of weeks the first migrating shorebirds could be showing up....at the rate the water is dropping it should be perfect viewing conditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment