Do we have eagles!

I for one am going to be very interested in hearing what the official count is going to be this coming weekend, because, boy, do we have eagles!  

Lets back up a day or so.... yesterday the rain stopped so after lunch we headed over to Harrison Bay...

with the campground unoccupied, decided to take the beach route....

this guy kept an eye on us....

as we came through the trail to the beach...

could see there was quite a collection of gulls on the beach and that they weren't all the normal Glaucous-wing Gulls.  Unfortunately at this point two large, aggressive, off leash dogs came tearing along the beach, so in order to protect our leashed dogs....had to forsake any further gull investigation.

waited for the dogs and their owners to pass us before carrying on......

one of the adjacent fields was full of....

not only Canada Geese, but also the smaller, Cackling Geese....the 4 laying down to the left are a few of them.

the new Bald Eagle nest was still being worked on....there were quite a few eagles perched in trees or soaring over head.

puddles in another field sported Mallards, Northern Pintails and a few American Wigeon ducks.

Today the walks were here at home....

this morning there were several Trumpeter Swans at the log bay.  Not just the above pair but also a family with 3 youngsters.....

this isn't a great photo but wanted to show not just the Common Mergansers (2 females on right) but the female Common Goldeneye.....

there are a lot of Common Merganser around right now....in this case a pair.

also Mallard....here with a Great Blue Heron and a young Mew Gull....in fact lots of Mew Gull here also...

but lets get back to the eagles....

this was the scene out on the flats this afternoon....

and closer in, this was just off of the log bay....

and across from the log bay....

and overhead.  When you live here you get so used to seeing eagles....but even we were awed by the number of them flying overhead this afternoon....well over a hundred.

Yesterday and today were also the first day's for counting birds at our feeders for the new season of Project Feeder Watch and we had some interesting birds....a female Downy Woodpecker (have never had a Downy in this particular yard before), a male House Sparrow (haven't seen a House Sparrow here in years) and a female Evening Grosbeak...

she has been around for 10 days or so.  I reported the male about a week ago.  Haven't seen him for a while although I can hear them calling so suspect there are a few around, they just seem to be coming to feeders one at a time which isn't normal for them.