Bath Time

Not long ago I caught these two seagulls taking their baths

Going under

Coming up

Shake off that water

Dive

Squiggle

Wiggle

Splash

Backwards - get all those feathers clean

Ahhh, that's better

Excuse me goose, do you mind?  This beach is taken.

New Ducks

I don't have a specific list of birds that I've seen in my life - but I do keep track in my head - and recently I've come across quite a few new ones.

The Water in the bay was so dark blue the last time we were at Birch Bay State Park.  We had breakfast at a local diner, very early, and set out for Birch Bay - we don't often go there so early in the morning and wanted to see what was going on then.  These photos are all straight out of the camera - this is the actual color of the water that day.

The Barrow's Golden  Eye Duck is not new to me - but I just had to show him flapping in the water - what a capture!

There were not large rafts of ducks - just some here and there - and I discovered that there were some I had not seen before.

The top one is the White Winged Scooter, the bottom one, Surf Scooter.

Surf Scooter with his amazing beak.

On the grass, some American Widgeons

And some Northern Shovelers

Jump in the water and swim away

And just one Green Winged Teal - he was swimming away so fast I was happy to get  this photo.

So with the Semipalmated Sandpipers yesterday, this makes five new birds on my list.  I think I'll start an actual list - and see how many birds would be on it.  Do you have a bird list?

Zoom In, Zoom Out

Wild Bird Wednesday    

 

A Different Road

A leisurely drive - no particular destination - turn down this road, let's see where it goes.

There is an apple orchard down this road - and over the top of the orchard - Mt. Baker 

And across the street - one Bald Eagle in a tree - one circling 

Two Bald Eagles in the tree 

In the orchard a flock of robins digs about in the old leaves and twigs for tasty bug and worms 

A true sign that spring is coming - the robins are back 

Sitting atop one of the branches of an apple tree, the buds are beginning to swell - can spring be far behind? 

And then we see him - a Great Blue Heron, right in the orchard, amongst the trimmed off branches  

I wonder if he is very old - his beak seems scarred 

And to end our day - a sunset  

And a Bald Eagle flying over the sunset.

Who could ask for anything more?  Take a different road - try a new area - you'll be thrilled with what you find.

Shorebirds

I've been looking for shorebirds lately - and not finding many.  I'd love to find a big flock of them one day.  But I had fun the other day going to Birch Bay - and just finding a few.

The first shorebirds we found were not even on the shore - they were up on the lawn in Birch Bay State Park.  Semipalmated Killdeer 

They move so fast that I had to aim the camera far ahead of where I thought they were going and hope for a bird in the photo. 

Then in town we saw just one of them on the beach 

Such a pretty little bird 

There on the beach, in the small waves breaking on the stones, were semipalmated sandpipers 

Semipalmated having to do with their toes only being partially webbed 

They are a small sandpiper - only about 5" tall 

They don't gather in large flocks, just a few together at a time 

And then the Killdeer and the Sandpipers were together on the beach 

Searching for food among the smooth stones  

For size comparison, a seagull floated by