Birdmandea

Happy Returns

2011-09-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

Shortly after moving in to our house seven years ago I ventured into the attic to locate the source of a water stain on the ceiling near the fireplace. It was late Summer and I wanted to get ahead of more water damage before our wet season started. Once I ventures in to the gloom and unknown I could see small shafts of sunlight piercing the blackness near the chimney's intersection with the roof line. I had to figure out how to secure the gaping fissures between the brick work and the roofing material from the inside. The roof at the time was covered with thin loose concrete tiles that would easily break under the pressure of my size fourteens.

During some painful contortions between the ceiling joists and the sloping roof line my eyes adjusted to the dim light. I could make out several dark tubular objects littering the insulation between the joists. As I moved to look closer I started seeing them everywhere.

My flashlight beam and focus zeroed in on one. It took a second to understand what I was looking at. These dozens of dark objects were mummified baby Violet-green Swallows. I found several nesting sites with some built on top of other nests full of more mummified birds. This was very cramped, dusty and disturbing. The "worst" of the nests was four deep. I came back later with better equipped to clean up the area and the more I looked the more I found. To be honest I could not get them all.

Several cans of expanding foam insulation later I knew that I could not completely seal all of the gaps from the inside enough to keep the rain out or future swallows. It is not that the gaps were to large to plug, I just cold not get to them all

Over the next few years the swallows would return each spring and shoot straight through the now smaller gaps and set up house keeping. I felt bad that by having filled many of the gaps it most likely would make it harder for the young swallows to find their way out of the attic. Fortunately I found that the days around when I thought the young I would leave the nests I left the garage door open half way. This would allow them enough light to navigate the flight through the rafters to the garage and then drop down and out to freedom.

A couple years ago I made a batch of bird houses with Chickadees and Wrens on my mind. I forgotten about the swallows. When they returned the nest in the spring I realized this tragic oversight. I was out of wood so I re-purposed a two of the unused chickadee boxes by turning them on their side and ova-ling out the entrance holes. Year after year swallow would fly by in ever tightening circles to inspect the new alternative to the gloomy doom in the attic. Year after year they chose the attic.

Early this Spring the roof was replaced. I made sure the two swallow houses I had placed eight feet off the ground were in good shape and looked welcoming. Spring showers would not let up. Cold weather pushed the swallow's arrival back a week or two then delayed their choosing a new nesting site. Pairs would circle for hours and then disappear for days

Then it happened, as if it had never been any other way. A pair of Violet Green Swallows took over and began to defend both houses eventually deciding on one. I had been using all of my Jedi mind tricks to project my preference. Laugh if you wish, think of me as a nut but I got what I wanted.

Over the past four years I had been trying to photograph the swallows in the yard with no success. In this case "no success" meant zero photographs. I had high hopes and delusions for this Spring as I had started working with a new camera purchased in late winter. Eight frames per second is not the fastest on the market but is was far faster then my three frame per second old timer.

The weather during the incubation and the first two weeks in the nest was cold and overcast. The week the babies hatched there were few flying insects to be found. The babies did end up spending extra days in the box. I do not know if the adults can slow the incubation speed or if the birds just grew slower with less food when they hatched. Any input out there?

Days before they did leave the nest the sun popped out and the waiting population of dragonfly nymphs morphed within hours and the game was on. The swallow activity exploded and the babies were saved from certain doom. I dropped everything and used these minutes to get my first pictures.

In the years of failure I took careful note of where the nest box placement would be the best for both the birds and my camera. Now I had a fixed spot in a void that a fourteen gram four inch long bird would pass through sporadically at high rates of speed. Simple.

For those who are as mystified by the metric conversion, fourteen grams is roughly equal to fourteen raisins or paperclips. Still? About thirty two birds to the pound.

This is "our" reward. I am sure the swallows are happier then I.

The Female approaching the nest box.

Leaving

The swallows can fly at speeds upwards of sixty five miles per hour. Speeds approaching the nest are much lower but still amazingly fast. This braking technique slows them from roughly thirty miles per hour to entering the hole in as little as ten feet!

 Here is the male on approach.

Here you can see the modified Chickadee house on it's side and the hole reshaped. Swallows have very short legs and big wings. The oval is much easier to rocket through.

All of these pictures were taken with a wireless remote control. I found it to be troublesome and unreliable but when it did work it did well. This angle is from above looking straight down.

I was surprised when reviewing the pictures, I could not see anything in the birds mouth as it returned to the nest. This trip netted two dragonflies. Notice that he caught one going in each direction. Each set of pictures that I took in which two dragonflies were caught at the same time they all were carried this was. This is similar to pictures of Puffins carrying small fish that I have seen.

So, of course when you catch three you have to stack them however you can.

So,  there is the happy resolution to something that had troubled me for a long time.

I had two other nest boxes that were successful this year also.

More about those trials later.

Those Fighting Mud Hens

2011-03-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

As a kid I did not know really what an American Coot was. Was it a duck? It swam with ducks, it looked kinda like a duck and in the Wisconsin hunting regulations it was listed as a "game bird" with a daily bag limit of fifteen birds. When I asked my dad he grunted "damn mud hens". When I asked his older brother he was not as nice.

As kids the two of them grew up in remote North Eastern South Dakota. Both were born in the same dirt floor farm house just as their seven siblings The farm house sat on land that had been in the family over a hundred years. Just as both of them were were starting to walk and talk the great depression crippled the nation. My grandfather was fortunate and had secured work using his mule team to clear the irrigation ditches of weeds for the government. The work was hard but it was a steady job that took him away from the farm. My dad and uncle filled the gaps the best they could. Their most important task was caring for the mules the second was supplementing the families food supply.

They employed a variety of snares and traps to catch small game for food and fur bearing animals for cash.
They could make "good" money with the hides of Snowshoe Hares in South Dakota during the winter. Solid white hare skins in the winter brought two cents per hide, brown and white hides of the Fall and Spring hares brought and a penny and a half and brown hares of Summer secured one whole penny. They worked together and after a particularly hard winter came up with enough fur money to buy a .22 cal single shot rifle and one hundred rounds of ammunition. That brought in more fur money as well as meat from larger game.When times were really tough and nothing else could been found to hunt they turned to "mud hens".

As adults looking back on the hard times they both shared, it was evident there was a level of shame and disgust. For them it was a social stigma and was not something they wanted to talk about. Carp also brought about the same feelings but that is a story for another time.

My father's friend and hunting buddy always did joke about cooking mud hens, the recipe was akin to digging a hole in the ground, lining it with fresh cow manure placing the mud hens in the center and covering them with more manure and then hot coals. Bake for several hours while bullshitting and drinking beer. Then dig it all up, throw the mud hens away and eat the manure. (Does not say much about he taste of the mud hens.) My father did not say much as we all rolled around laughing, I don't think he never got over it.

Years have pasted as well as my father and uncle, mud hens remain. For years now I have been subconsciously seeing Coots through the eyes of my father as something to be berated and avoided.
Our culture has only a few references to coots. The first one I ever heard of was "The Fighting Mud hens" a base ball team mentioned in the television series M*A*S*H in the seventies. I later learned that there really is a baseball team in Toledo Ohio called the Fighting Mud hens.

So, is that it? They taste bad and they fight?

Recently I happened upon a mixed flock of American Coots and Norther Shoveler ducks at a nearby lake. The light was good and I thought I would watch for a bit.

At first glance there is not really all that much to see. American Coots feed in the shallows at the edges of water bodies "mud" and they bob their heads when they walk and swim "hen". They make a variety of clucks, grunts and muffled sounds that are not very melodic or romantic. Mud hen not a very flashy nick name nor is it all that demeaning. Since the coots all look alike and they don't look like much, it takes a bit of observation to figure out what is going on in the life of a coot.

American Coots are a dark gray water bird with a black head and white bill. Found mostly near fresh water through out the North American they are abundant and not threatened or endangered. I would assume that if they were a bit tastier that might have changed their status.

In flight they are just as drab as walking, sitting or swimming.

They have a shockingly white bill that contrasts with the dark, drab body coloration. If there is a difference between the sexes in their plumage I can not see it, apparently they can or we would not have any coots

In addition to aquatic vegetation, insect and invertebrates Coots also graze on grass. The old adage of "you are what you eat" shines through when it comes to mud hens. By feeding in mud the finer nuances of decay, scum and bugs deeply flavor their flesh. I do not ever recall seeing any animal ever eating a Coot.

One of the most striking features of the coot are their feet. They do not have webbed feet, they have "lobed" feet. While paddling around in the water during the upstroke the lobes collapse and wrap around the toes bones to reduce drag. During the down stroke the lobes flare open and increase the surface area of the foot to increase propulsion. The pattern and coloration of the feet conjure up visions of something primitive or prehistoric.

This modification of the foot allows them to walk on soft mud and vegetation without sinking. It also allows them to accelerate amazing fast when taking off, fleeing predators and fighting with their own kind. They can go from zero to ass kicking speed in a blink of an eye!

Their feet also allow them to propel their buoyant bodies from the water's surface straight down in search of food or to escape said predators and attacking members of their own kind.

During the Winter American Coots gather in flocks, as Spring approaches they pair up and become very territorial and nasty toward others of their own kind. Every species of animal has it's own way of telling others of it's own kind it is trespassing. A snort, a bark, a curled lip or the beating of ones chest but with American Coots attack may be the only warning you get. Within any given species of animal there is nothing to be gained for the species over all if territorial aggression leads to injury or death. (Mankind excluded.) There has to be some ritual rule that everyone understands to prevent interactions that in the end would prove to be harmful to the species as a whole. Mud hens do not have talons or razor sharp bills to slash and cut their enemies with. All they have is a very pointy bill and the ability to accelerate in an instant to drive their point home.

As I watched the flock of Northern Shovelers mill about feeding a lone Coot swam into view. It seemed as if it was just minding it's own business when without a warning that I could perceive it was attacked by a nearby pair. I happened to have the camera up and ready to go when I captured the following sequence of a coot attack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7J2B4ZjhYI

This attack style is common. I guess one coot attacking another is not the point, it's the tenacity and duration of the fights that brings out the best or worst in the coot. Even when it appears that there is a victor the fight it is not over. Driving the intruder far away makes a point not only to the loser but to all who observer the conflict.

My father often said "life is hard when you shit through feathers". He had to have seen events like the one above many times and understood that with mud hens like us, life can be hard when you go though life with a target painted on your ass.

Butter Talons

2011-03-12T08:01:00.000-08:00

Wave after wave of spring storms are trudging their way across the Northwest this spring. During the lulls in the weather I try to get out and spend time with the animals even if the sun does not.

The lack of good light does not stop life from continuing but it does make it difficult for the camera to follow. I recently upgraded my camera to a behemoth that can take eight frames per second as well as take high definition video. At the same time I figured out how to embed sideshows and videos directly to my blog.

My pictures are two dimensional, I hope to fill them out with my rambling narratives. Now I hope to add the forth dimension to share with you. Some things in nature just have to been seen and now with videos I can give you sound also.

For this blog allow me to share with you, breakfast with an eagle.

Maybe lunch will be better.

I seen em’!!! Part One

2011-03-06T05:53:00.000-08:00

It is not the vernacular of the local peasantry but here in the Northwest it is part of our history. During the eighties it was a popular bumper sticker as part of an advertising blitz by a local and iconic beer company. Though is was probably their most successful advertising campaign they went out of business shortly afterward. So what was “seen”? The Artesians. Supposedly the “Artesians" were leprechaun or gnome like creatures that lived in the Northwest that were responsible for the high quality water and the beer it produced.

Of course there are no Artesians now or then but this does bring me a smile when I go to the field and see the things I see. Rather the things I see and cannot explain. After all I live in Bigfoot country I should try to pay a little more attention. So what about those who see things like the Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch, Ogopogo, New Jersey devil or the Chupacabra? I am leaving UFO’s out of this on purpose.

I am not going there.

Setting aside those who knowingly set out to deceive others for whatever their assorted motives may be, people do see things that they cannot explain. It may due to poor lighting, short distorted mental pictures, fear, excitement, weak minds or an honest to God truth that they saw what they saw. Regardless they did see something that they feel does need to be validated. So what was it? I don’t know but I have recently had two wildlife encounters that I photographed that made me stop for a few seconds and ask, what in the hell did I just see?

So here is how this is going to work. Below are photographs for you to look at. Try to scroll down on to them while looking away so just your peripheral vision can register them in the right spot for you to look directly at them. Look at the picture for two seconds and close your eyes. Do not look back. Think about what you saw and wonder how you would explain what you just saw.

Scenario One

You are standing in a coniferous forest clearing in the edge of a military base. Bright white fluffy clouds are drifting across a bright blue sky. With the sun to your left you look up and see a dark colored bird of in the distance flying just above the tree tops in a rectangular pattern. As you move closer the bird completes two of these race tracks. You close to within one hundred yards and the target bird has not acknowledge your approach. Sun still to your left, bird's altitude 80-100 feet, no vocalizations, larger than the local crows but smaller then the Bald Eagles.

Scroll down for your two second encounter.

What do you have to say?

Scenario Two

You are standing on an embankment overlooking a tidal interchange zone with the tide going out. It is below freezing with stiff wind to your face making your eyes water. The sun has just crested the ridge line behind you. Fast moving intermittent cloud cover varies the light and the water has a slight chop to it. You are actively scanning the water at a distance watching for incoming duck that fly down the waterway at high speed. A near by mixed flock of ducks explode in to the air. You do a quick sky check looking for either a Peregrine Falcon or Bald Eagle diving in. No luck. The ducks that took to wing are in complete disarray and trying to regroup. Several ducks further away start babbling nervously. Look back to the water directly in front of you and see........one second this time.......

Then you get another glimpse a few seconds later......one second...............and it is gone forever.

Did you see that...? Did.... huh....aah...

DUDE!!! DID YOU SEE THAT?????

So by now you have really really looked at them. What-ca you got to say now? Who are you going to say it to?

There is a comment box below, share with me. No one will laugh at you...much.

In my next blog I will give you the answers. I would really like to see your comments.

I would like to know how you think.

If I had not had a camera in hand how would I be conveying these images to you and know you comprehend what I thought I saw?

Here is a parting bonus.

You have my personal guarantee that there are NO trans-dimensional beings in this photograph. No tricks just a picture taken in the field then you get home up load them all to your computer and suddenly yo have this.....

Tell me, what did you photograph?

Ferry Dock Fight

2011-02-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

In the early pioneer days of Washington, two men came to this area and each decided that this would be a great location to build a town and a port on the South Puget Sound. Both overlooked that other locations nearby were better suited. I think that their ambitions and greed may have clouded their judgment. Never the less they each started to build towns side by side without any safe port or harbor. Each had very different ideas of the how to layout a their towns and as time passed and the edges of the two towns met. Of course when you have strong wills and egos there are bound to be small issues. The streets were at different angles and did not lineup. Eventually the towns combined and a road was cut through the easement where the two met and was creatively named Union Avenue.

Union Avenue descends a long hill while bisecting town and terminates at the hot spot in my sleepy little town. Jam packed into just a couple of acres you will find the ferry terminal, ferry parking lanes, short term parking lots, a bus stop, a boat launch, a major railroad corridor, a small snack/liquor store and the State Prison boat and barge terminal. All of this human activity as well as the trash cans and dumpsters are a gold mine for the local crows. Like us the crows view anything of value as something worth fighting for.

In April of last year I happen upon this violent interaction two blocks from the ferry terminal. It ended when a crow dove in from the upper left and impacted the crow on the right. As a woman walking her dog approached the crows cleared out.

Last week I was passing by the same area when I heard crows sounding an alarm. I drive around with my windows down often to keep an ear to the world. I approached them unseen due to the fight in progress.

After the fight broke up one of the crows was holding a feather.

It was a prize from the fight.

Though hard to see in the pictures there was a tiny bit of flesh and down feather on the base of the feather's shaft. The crow meticulously cleaned it from the quill. It appeared as if the crow carefully consumed the tiny morsel of it's enemy.

Was this a symbolic act?

For the crow that lost the feather it may be more then just humiliating. There is always the threat of infection, avian pox or physical damage. During the early stages of feather growth the quill is engorged with blood, if a feather is pulled or damaged during this vulnerable phase the crow could bleed out and die.

The noise of the two groups was deafening. The defeated crow and it's supporters shouted their rebuttals from the safety of a near by tree as the winners regrouped on the grass laughing at their defeated brethren.

Once the feather was cleaned and thoroughly inspected the new owner the crow jumped high into the air and hovered for a moment then dropped the feather falling to the earth behind it. This exhibition was repeated two more times rallying the winning crow's group to cheer in a raucous chorus and gather around the prized feather.

Hurling insults to add to the injury.

The exchange of taunts went on and on. It was very emotional for both sides and as it continued it took on a very human appearance. Disturbingly human but then again the part of the brain being used by the crows at this point is the same part we use in similar circumstances. The "lizard part".

The loosing team. The best I can determine there was a total of fifteen to eighteen crow involved. The winning side had a two or three bird advantage. More then enough to tip the balance of power.

I taunt you.

I own you.

To the victor go the spoils. Now for the victory lap around the ferry dock parking lot for all to see. I wondered how long this crow would keep the feather as it flew over the railroad tracks. My thoughts of following the pair ended when the crossing signal blared out it's warring of an oncoming train.

We all can agree that crows and their cousins are very intelligent and social creatures. When we think of the social aspect we tend to think of the nurturing of the young, cooperative feeding and strong individual bonds. The positive and good things of society. These things we value as part of our social values. Crows somehow make it is easy to draw conclusions and parallels to ourselves, until things turn dark. Then they look more like us then we realize or want to admit to.

I will keep an I eye on the ferry dock "gangs". I will try to determine how often these turf battles take place and how far do they go.

A Disturbance in the Force

2011-02-16T19:42:00.000-08:00

Just before a recent cold snap I went out to the yard and covered up the faucets and disconnected the hoses. I went into the chicken's yard and made sure they had what they needed. The last stop among the things I check out was the fountain I made to look like a spring two years ago. I noticed the all of the soil around the "pond" was torn up and in disarray. I immediately suspected that Red the squirrel had done it. You have meet Red and know his ways.

I bought fresh batteries for the wildlife camera and set it up. Here is an over view of what is going on when I not around to watch.

I not real pleased with this turn of events. I turn on the yard lights at night and wait a minute or so before I let the dogs out. I do not want the Raccoons and the dogs to ever to have a change to interact. no good can come of it.

Red is on the log at the bottom of the pond drinking.

Red is at the at the top of the vertical log taking a drink.

A Steller's Jay hops along the vertical log toward the camera.

A Steller's at at the top of the pond standing in the water.

The sneaky little rabbit that eats more then it's fair share in the garden.

Then the Raccoons take over.

A challenge to the camera?

I am sure they area looking for the three goldfish that have been living in there for the last two years.

So now when Phoebe stands there and sniffs long and hard I can pretty much assume that she is taking in all of the nuances of the recent visitor. I often wonder when the dogs did that how old if any sent was there. Now I will not be so quick to tell her she is nuts.

A Timeless Battle

2011-02-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

Last month my laptop did something I have never had a computer do. It was full. Full full. Not one more thing could be added. Not one thing. Foolishly I thought the day would never come. I set about deleting duplicate photos. I figured that was where the most fat was. I was correct. Quickly I dropped 41G. I wish other things were that easy to lose.

One advantage to this was that I found a folder that contained the pictures I would like to share with you. My last Blog was a graphic fight for life encounter between an eagle and a brant. The eagle is the apex predator of it’s world, the brant, big game in ever sense of the word. This struggle goes one every day and sometimes it goes on right under foot.

This is a year round resident of my backyard. S/he is a Rough Skinned Newt ( Taricha granulosa).

These pictures were taken in October, 2008. I stumbled upon him as I was moving dirt near my fountain. I dropped the shovel and picked up the ever near by camera. I do not know it's gender, so to make it easier on me to write this, he will be male. The next will be female.

I don't see his kind very often so I didn’t know much about them at the time I took these pictures. What ever opinion I may have had of them before this encounter changed just as quickly as I took the pictures.

On the prowl. In the first two photos you can't see the orange undersides. With the newt's coloration blending into and between the browns of the ground litter and the orange of the broken pot shards, he is for all intents and purposes invisible to his prey and those who would do him harm. He fears very few predators, he has a surprise for any animal that may want to eat him. His orange coloration may give some warning to any predator that has color vision, but those with simpler eyes have to learn the hard way. He is packing a powerful poison. His kind manufacture a chemical called Tetrodotoxin, in the vernacular of the local peasantry, "zombie powder". As the name implies it is the source of your average day to day Voodoo type of zombie. It is found marine animals around the world, most commonly in puffer fish , a few crabs, rare octopus and it is the poison of choice in Central American frogs.

It is a powerful neurotoxin that has no antidote. It depolarizes nerve cells preventing commands from the brain reaching organs and muscles causing paralysis and / or death. In some areas select species of Garter Snake are not effected by this toxin which would suggest a long running co-evolution between the two. A classic and timeless arms race. But how and why such a powerful toxin?

Look but don't touch!

Really, have you ever seen or
heard of a zombie movie plot that ever really went well?

Years ago I had a tough little Chihuahua. In her prime she feared nothing and was a adventurous explorer. One rainy night as we walked we came upon a newt slowly crossing a cold asphalt road. Before I could react she chomped down. An instant later the newt was back on the road drenched in dog saliva. She never approached a newt again. I know she could not see color under the conditions that night but she never forgot the shape, taste, smell and gait of the newt.

As a survival strategy a few newts may die but the effects they have on their predators (that survive) ensures that many are spared.

There have been times in my life when I have thought to myself, “Hmm I could really use an earthworm right about now” but this time one actually appeared.

Upon seeing the worm the newt froze and stood motionless for a long time. The worm kept cautiously advancing. Half of an inch forward and a quarter of an inch back. The first light tough between the worm and newt caused the worm to pull back a little then stop. Both froze.

He then touched the worm.

The worm recoiled violently. The worm knew now that it was in trouble and was not wasting any time in going back the way it had come.

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,". Macbeth's witch may have been onto something.
I am struck by the eye, it's proportion to the head as well as it looking differently from what we normally encounter, it looks as if the eyes are connected directly to the spine with the brain being rather rudimentary. The newt took up the chase and slowly followed with calculating steps.

Then he pounced which was surprisingly fast and well aimed. It was on, these pictures do not do justice the violent thrashing the nest endured. The worm used it's serpentine grip on the soil to leverage the newt's head and body as the newt relied on it's legs and tail to counter each of the worm's assaults.

The newt had a mouthful but that was all.

If he had teeth they weren't very large. The jaw has matching bony ridges that meet to form a vise like grip. The jaw is driven by powerful muscles that barely have the strength to open but it's not about how fast or forcefully you open your mouth as a predator it's all about the closing and holding on.

As the worm thrashed about it slowly lost it's own grip on the soil and leaf litter. The newt's wide leg stance and tail swinging to counter the force of the worm had turned the table. The worm now just thrashed about in the air and on top of the newt helpless.

The newt now had not only the upper hand, he hand a hand, two actually.

I sure that even by the simplest of evolutionary theory, a newt is not very advanced. Granted the poison thing is a pretty neat trick but otherwise he is not very complicated. His feet barely look as if they are completely formed, he is not fast, he doesn't dig, no really big teeth, no armor or scales for protection. And if all of this was not enough to make his life tough, he is cold blooded. If the temperature drops while he is out in the open and unprotected he just stops mid stride and waits helplessly until he warms up enough to move again. The cold blooded issue for all of the possible shortcomings it has looking at it from a mammals point of view really is a blessing in disguise. His food requirements are minimal. Without the need to burn calories to warm up, food reserves last longer.

Then his slow moving gait and defensive stance gave way as he transformed into a worm wrestling dynamo. All muscles strained to control the worm as the stubby little foot stepped on the worm near the newt's mouth. At first it looked as if the newt was wiping the dirt off of the worm before tried to take a larger bite. As he repositioned himself it became clear that the feet were increasing the leverage and pressure on the worm at the newt's jaw.

Just as it looked as if the worm was going to get the last of the upper hands to be had...

... it was over. The newt had used the thrashing of the worm to his advantage. His pit bull grip and tenacity used against the worm's rotating and writhing simply twisted off a juicy piece of worm! He didn't have to eat the whole worm, just take a bite out of it. Talk about renewable resources, just go get a bite of worm and move on to the next. It will just grow back!

To para phrase something about dogs..."It is not the size of the newt in the fight that matters...it's the size of the fight in the newt".

Look, don't touch. Zombies.

Speed...your only friend

2011-01-29T07:44:00.000-08:00

Last week we took a drive. Sporadic flooding and poor weather limited directions we could go and enjoy the day. We took our chances and made the plan as we went along. At some point in the day we ended up at a small derelict county park on the Northeastern corner of the Olympic Peninsula. We had been there twenty years ago and I remembered clearly this spot was great for Black Turnstones, Northern Pintails and Black Brants. A gravel spit pushes up at the mouth of a narrow passage between two islands.
Successive storms have made a series of gravel steps forming a natural dam that captures the high tide forming a lagoon. As the tide recedes the lagoon drains via a narrow steep sided stream winding through the gravel and driftwood.

On the seaside of the lagoon a mixed flock of twenty-five Norther Pintails and twenty Black Brants was feeding and resting in the shallow pools at the edge of the spit. The sun was low in the overcast sky directly behind the mixed flock making good photographs out of the question but that never stopped me from shooting up a couple hundred pictures to erase later that same night.

As we walked out on to the spit the wind picked up and a biting rain started to come head on. We kept going knowing ( hoping) that it might pass as quickly as it started. Along the break water we found the Black Turnstones I had hoped to see, their camouflage gave them the advantage and they saw us long before we saw them.

Of course here they are out in the open a few moments later. Do you see them?

How about now? Not much to see.

The Turnstones paid little attention to us as we passed them. The relaxed gulls began to stir and a scream. I lowered my camera and took a look around. The Turnstones took off out over open water. My eyes followed them out until my line of sight was interrupted by a lone Bald Eagle approaching us fast and low to water.

Nothing looked out of place at first. It is not uncommon to see Bald Eagles flying low over open water. But still something was different. If my eye had not been drawn there I would have never seen it coming.

As the Eagle got closer it's speed and wing beat increased.

It seemed as if the Eagle got to a predetermined point and then really poured on the speed. With all of this speed the Eagle was still not gaining any altitude.

With a few slight maneuvers suddenly the Eagle started to look like a falcon in it's flight. Where the eagle was going was no longer a question.

Now thirty yards from the flock which is still not aware of it's approach as of yet. The the Eagle crested the rim of the gravel spit and successfully caught the mixed flock sitting flat ass on the water.

---MASS CONFUSION ENSUES---

The next two seconds went on forever. Following the eagle over the bar and into the flock, I ended up looking directly into a sliver break in the heavy cloud cover ( lens stretched out to 250mm) temporarily blinding me. Lowering the camera to recover and relocate the eagle, I could see nothing except a mushroom clouds of birds and water rising up from the lagoon back lit by a silver shaft of light..

I search frantically for what I thought would be an Eagle standing over a kill or possible flying off its score. But ducks, geese and gulls had exploded in every conceivable direction, trailing water from the bodies as they took off for anywhere but where they were!

I finally spotted the eagle flying directly away from the flock's former location low to the water. I brought the camera up to eye level and started to shoot. As I did the eagle turned to the left. I could see that the Eagle was still moving at high speed but I could not see anything as the camera struggled to focus.

Side note on the photo above. All I did to it was crop. The poor light and high speed pan to the left caused the pastel effect.

Then I saw the Brant.

The Eagle was slowly closing the gap with each powerful wing beat. Gradually the gain slowed until their speeds matched. The goose stayed low using the the surface of the water to help compress the air beneath it's wings and gain speed. The Eagle gradually lost speed and struggled to maintain altitude. A moment after this the Eagle dropped down to the goose's level. The instant the goose and eagle matched speed, the goose shot upward and banked hard to the left. The Eagle was spent and simply could not match the maneuver. The eagle's wing beat and speed slowed as it just kept on going and flew off out of sight.

The sky was filled with waterfowl and gulls all moving in different directions. A few moments later scattered birds started to gather up into small groups which then joined other of their own kind. Within minute the Pintails were headed back to the shallow water on the spit but the Brants as a whole kept on going off toward the setting sun.

One was probably a little more winded then the others.

The light was fading and the rain was getting colder and harder to face...time to go home.

A Good Run

2011-01-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

A little over a year ago I wrote the Blog “Where the Lions Roam”. It was about a Sea lion feeding on a Salmon in open water.

http://birdmandea.blogspot.com/2009/11/sea.html

I was unaware at the time that it was the start of the 2009 Chum Salmon run. I later learned that the run was very disappointing compared to previous years. Countless animals that depend on the high energy food during the dead of winter went without.

Chum Salmon. A name can say a lot. It is also know as “Dog salmon”.
Compared to other salmon species on the Eastern rim of the Pacific Ocean the Chum has been not the most preferred by humans.With the pressures of overfishing and environmental change many of the more desirable species have declined to a point where the Chum is now being viewed as a more important part of the economic biomass as a sport and commercial asset to be utilized to its fullest. As if it wasn't already hard enough on the wildlife that depends on this annual and fickle bonanza, man's role again just increases the pressure.

December, 2010 at the foot of the dam I saw this big boy cruising slowly head on toward the dam then diving under and floating away from the dam submerged. While he was underwater I could move closer and find a little cover.

As I was waiting for the sea lion to surface I side stepped closer to the edge of the water when a salmon splashed as it took off for deep water. I will admit it, it startled my and I compromised my hiding spot.

A moment later either it or another was right back in the same spot. These salmon are done, few will ever make it over the dam, for the few that do there is no where to spawn and their lives end in the shallows of the creek. Now I had a salmon two feet away while a sea lion patrolled less then twenty-five feet away. I had been crouching up to this point, I stood up, the salmon took off and the sea lion noted my presences and slowly moved off to deeper water.

*****************************************

On my way home I looked out to the water as I passed our local beach. I could see a large swirl on the water’s surface a few yards out from the Volleyball sand pit. I pulled into the parking lot and headed for the beach on foot. The tide was still high so there wasn’t much of a beach. I used the trees at the high water line to cover my approach. The sea lion had been slowly moving Westerly from where I had originally spotted it and now I was to the East of it.

The seal lion was holding this salmon by the gills. It appeared to be dead and the sea lion was slowly swimming with no real intention of going any where or of letting the salmon go.

This by it's self seemed odd but I tought it was an isolated incident and made a folder and moved on to other things. Although birds tend to be my primary interest all animals I encounter get a folder. I have a lot of folders.

A couple days later I drove to the dam during a late morning downpour. The icy rain was being whipped around by gusty unpredictable winds. The sky was black and a monotone gray was the only color one could see.

When I got to the dam this Harbor Seal surfaced with a salmon in it’s mouth. I shot a quick series of pictures as the seal looked at me turned and took off. I strung them together into a short movie that I posted on my Flickr page.

Even through the view finder of the camera I could see this seal's eye turn a catch me looking at it.

Now s/he is showing me what a big fish s/he has

I do not know how to put a movie into this blog or if it can be done.
Here is the link if you would like to take quick look.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25348030@N07/5255120035/

I was about to hit the "publish post" button and send this blog post on it's way to you but I though one more trip to the dam might be worth it and after all there is no dead line or anything like that going on here. There was always the hope that I might get better light. Two days later I took the following collection series of pictures. Honestly. I took close to a 400, gotta love those digital cameras. And I did not even have to change the battery!

I timed my visit to coincide with the high tide. This put about fourteen feet of water at the foot of the dam and made hunting easy for the seals. I waited until the two patrolling seals dove under and I jumped out of the car and got in to my hiding spot I had chosen on my previous visits.

They surfaced and saw a car pulling up behind mine. The car stopped for a moment the backed out and drove off, during the distraction the seals overlooked me as I hunkered down and set the camera up to match the lighting conditions them the best I could. I took all of these pictures through a chain link fence. Careful attention to lens position and angle helped to keep the pictures clear and usable.

An instant later the larger of the pair turned and pounced on a salmon. The larger seal is fairly agressive toward the others in the area and I am assuming that it may be a male. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure like most other predatory animals that is how it works.

He is not acting as if he wants to share. I have never seen much in the way of facial expression in the seals but their eyes seem to be rather telling. You can just make out the outline of the fish to the left of his mouth.

I am going to take a quick time out here and ask a few questions.
Is that the most amazing natural camouflage pattern or what? Sure a Tiger is awe inspiring but this color and pattern combination is simply amazing. How did they do that?

The seals appear to hold the fish by the head preventing water from reaching the gills killing the fish.

Holding the salmon with his flippers, he opens the fish open as if it had a zipper.

Salmon eggs spill out in to the water.

The salmon is reduced to several large jagged chunks that are bolted down in seconds. Then all is quiet.

*********************

Less then eight minutes later He has another big "hen" in his jaws.

After swimming a few slow circles with the fishes head out of the water there is no more fight.

Then he holds the fish by the gills. From this angle you can see the belly of the salmon swollen with eggs.

This time the Common Mergansers, Barrow's Golden Eyes and Gulls in the area moved in to grab what the could. This lucky Male Merganser came up with a mass of eggs.

The more the seal ate the bolder the Mergansers became moving in closer and closer to recover the scraps.

Well there goes my cover.

See you next year.

A very good run indeed.

Going deep

2010-12-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

Very early in my life I knew I was a bird watcher. From the ages of seven to seventeen I could safely say I saw less then fifteen Bald Eagles in the wild. This was in Wisconsin. If someone was going to see an eagle you would have thought Wisconsin would had been a pretty good place to look. By the time I was twenty three and left the US for Panama for two years I could safely say I had seen less then twenty more bald eagles. During this time period I traveled from coast to coast. Any sighting was noteworthy and some are still vivid. Sad to say that there were so few.

Times have change and I now live where at any given day if you were to say....take me to an eagle, I could probably find one if not more within four hours on a bad day. This make me happy.

This encounter took place this past April. The local hatchery had released a large number of salmon that were the epicenter of a feeding frenzy. Over two dozen Bald Eagles had converged offering an unparalleled opportunity to zero in on them. I am sorry if I post to many eagle blogs, I love to see them, I love to photograph them, I love knowing that they are there.

Fish that had been plentiful over the past two weeks were starting to thin out. As there physiology changed from fresh to salt water they moved out of the intertidal zone for Puget Sound. The eagles were starting to get on each others nerves and squabbles were frequent.

Two weeks ago these birds would drop a fish they had in their talons just to pick up another for fun.

That was not the case today.

This is the local nesting male bald eagle. He just missed his targeted fish.

He looked back over his shoulder as he lifted up and circled back sharply. On his initial approach had hit the fish and stunned it leaving it to linger near the surface.

He locked his wings and plunged into the water at a steep angle more like an Osprey then an eagle.

Like an Osprey he pours on raw power and lifts effortlessly pulls himself and the fish out of the water.

I love how it looks as if he looking down at the fish to see if it is really there.

I had seen seven eagles in the trees ringing this little arena. One of them is his mate.

I am not clued into exactly what a female eagle is looking for in a mate but I would say that that little maneuver will sure look good on his resume.

An Odd Duck

2010-12-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

Last Spring I stopped by Titlow Park in Tacoma, Washington. The fall before I had seen an Eurasian Wigeon Drake and was hoping for better pictures then I had taken in the past. I found and focused in on the Wigeons on the pond which became a large part my blog “Who’s the Daddy”. In this chapter I photographed not only an Eurasian Wigeon Drake but also a Hybrid American X Eurasian Wigeon Drake.

http://birdmandea.blogspot.com/2010/01/whos-daddy.html

During that outing I took pictures of all of the birds in the small pond so I could get an overview of the Wigeon population to see if there were any female Eurasian Wigeons in the flock. I did not find any females that I could say for sure one way or the other they were Eurasian. I did find a strange Drake Mallard. It stayed away from the rest of the Mallards on the pond. At first I thought it was a young Drake in some type of transitional phase but also noticed that none of the other Mallards look like that. I was very excited about the whole Wigeon discovery I figured I would figure it out later. I made a folder called "Odd Mallard" and put the pictures in it. I would drop by from time to time to compare it to other mallard photos to figure out why it was different but the same.

Over the following months I looked very closely at every single Mallard and Wigeon picture I have. Then I did it again. No other Mallard looked like that.

This past week an errand took me near Titlow at mid day and the Sun was shining bright. This is one of those moments like I mentioned in my last blog entry that I can not let slip by. I wanted to see if the Eurasian Wigeon or the hybrid had returned this Fall. I scanned the birds on the small pond and quickly saw there was no sign of either of them.

The strange Mallard was there. I zeroed in on him and took the following photos.

When I looked them over later that day I started to notice head shape irregularities. The pattern on the head started to look like he might be a Mallard x American Wigeon.

A Typical Mallard Drake

A typical American Wigeon Drake

I could not explain the female looking feathers on the flanks but I thought the head pattern was very Wigeon like and the body feather coloration was effected by the mixing of genes.

I went online and started to look for photographs of Mallards X Wigeon hybrids. Surprisingly I found quit a few. Mostly killed by hunters. The photos did show a wide range of possible color variations.

So this is about where I went off the rails. Damn internet.

I gathered up and cropped the pictures for this collage to support my “discovery”.

I posted this picture on my Flickr page so I could add it to the Hybrid Bird Group to see I could get feedback to see if I was right. Even before I could get the head collage up loaded a local birder and wildlife photographer who kindly comments on my photographs did so on the first one. She questioned if the bird could have looked the way it does due to age. I had thought of that the first time I saw it and then again when I saw the duck the second time. I was leaning toward thought that he was an older bird. When I headed down the hybrid path I forgot all about a chance it was a pure Mallard and it's age being a factor in it's feather coloration.

This morning coffee in hand I light the old Flickr page and I was rather shocked to learn that the wizened ones in the Hybrid Bird Group informed me that this in as “Inter-sex” Mallard.

It is clear this duck was odd. I guess I focused in on the head pattern and called it wrong. In a nutshell low estrogen in a female duck causes them to developed male feathers. Male feathers are the "default" setting. Normal female Estrogen levels provide the characteristic brown camouflage pattern we are all familiar with.

I will admit I may have made an assumption here far beyond what I should have. I have always seen the Mallards on this small pond with Wigeons. I assumed that if I had already found a hybrid at this site why could I not possibly see another. The head pattern may have been coincidental and I filled in the rest as I went along.

I love it. That is what keeps birding fresh for me. Finding something new, something rare or something totally unexpected in the middle of a park when hundreds of people visit a week. This bird has been sitting there along. If I had not taken the picture I would have surly forgotten the minor details that made the difference in the identification, blown it off and never known.

Here are the links to the comments and Flickr pages mentioned above.

Flikr Hybrid Birds Group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/hybridbirds/

Comments on the head shot collage on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25348030@N07/5232939881/

Comments of the Inter Sex Mallard photos on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25348030@N07/5232875527/in/photostream/

Have fun and take care!

Cold snap

2010-11-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

The weather took a turn and a cold front landed on top of us for a few days. Heavy snow and high winds made it difficult for all of the little birds to find food. The first clear day afterward was cold and calm. I came across a small group of birds in a parking lot at the local mall.

Their focus on finding food outweighed their interest in me taking pictures of them.

This is a Male Brewer's Blackbird

His kind evolved with the ebb and flow of the Great Plains of North America. With the reduction of the Bison they adopted cattle and human agricultural ways. More recently most any urban parking lot will harbor a group of Brewer's blackbirds.

Potato chip crumbs and cigarette butts in a Safeway parking lot seam a world apart and somewhat less romantic then roaming the open plains of a precolonial North American with Bison and Antelope herds that spread from horizon to horizon.

Our striking Male specimen here was causally strolling near this patch of undisturbed snow covered grass.

He was attempting to draw a trio of females over to his spot

He was also hoping that they would leave the two male Brewer's Blackbirds with them behind for he is a better provider and obviously of superior breeding stock. You do not have to look hard, you can see it his walk as well as being written on his forehead.

The small group of Brewer's Blackbirds started to move closer to the first male when they intersected with a group of European Starlings. These two birds species are literally from different worlds.

The Starlings were introduced to North America in the 1890's. They were transplanted from Europe. At the time I am sure someone had a good reason to do it. Since then the Starlings expanded Westward until they reached the West Coast in the 1950'S. In sixty years less then a hundred Starlings fanned out to cover the entire United States of America's lower forty eight states.

Along the way the Starling has become vilified for competing with native bird species for food and nesting locations. They are also viewed as a destructive agricultural pest causing higher food costs for us humans. The bottom line is we screwed up the system and bare sole responsibility for the loss of so many species. Blaming the Starling is not fair, they are just doing what Starlings do. We get pissed off just because they are so good at it.

This is the Starling "Winter coat". Fair wear and tear on the Starlings feathers over the Winter gradually wears the light colored feather tips off. They revile the dark metallic color of the mating colors in the Spring.

Starlings are aggressive and demanding. Starlings often travel in groups that easily over power other groups of birds that have already found a found source. This does not endear them to many bird enthusiasts.

This handsome bird is a great example of feather coloration that can be found in many birds. The feathers do not really have a color of their own. They refract light with tiny structures in their feathers the act as prisms constantly changing the light reflected off of them.

These two pictures were taken an instant apart and you can see the difference.

Portraits of the European Starling

I could not tell you if this is a male of female Starling.

They all look alike to me.

The groups intermingled.

Even though he acted as if he wanted this female to come closer to see what he had found, he turned on her and drove her off.

With his focus returning to his precious, he lowered his guard for a moment.

A moment is all it took for the Starlings to seize their chance. The differences in how the feathers of each species catch and reflect the light.

Out numbered and caught off guard there is nothing in that little hole worth fighting for.
A tactical retrograde and...

...no harm done.

In the end there was nothing there. Was our sly Male smooth talking the Lady Blackbird?

The cold snap and the fleeting moments of brilliant sunshine gave me a chance to photograph these often overlooked birds up close and in detail. As much as the whole snow thing was a major inconvenience for me it was a life challenging episode for them. The snow melted the next day as the temperatures rose to the high 30's. With the lower pressure and warmer temps come the clouds and the gray overcast skies of our typical winters. These wet and warmer nights allow the birds to conserve their energy. Every calorie saved is one that goes to surviving the Winter. They say it is going to be cold and snowy this year.

I feel selfish for hoping for more sunny days.

The Helican

2010-11-18T08:32:00.000-08:00

A wonderful bird is a pelican,

His bill will hold more than his belican.

He can take in his beak

Food enough for a week;

But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

"The Pelican" (1910) by Dixon Lanier Merritt

When I was in school at some point in time I was introduced to Ogden Nash's poem "The Pelican". My English teacher did not have access to a service such as Wikipedia to get her facts straight. The very first thing I find as start to write this entry is that Mr. Nash did not pen this poem so in trying to give credit where credit is do,

Thank you Mr. Merritt.

In forming the core thought of what this blog would be I knew that I had to use those words. I never became a big poetry fan so this cute little ditty slipped to a back corner of my mind to be pulled out at the right moment to impress someone with my refined, well rounded and cultured mind.

There have been few opportunities.

There were no pelicans In Wisconsin. When I first heard the poem the concept of a pelican became exotic and something far far away. I could see them on the television, Flipper, remember Flipper?
The only other images I can remember of Brown Pelicans on TV was when they were oil soaked after some drilling disasters in the Gulf states or California.

I could see them in my birding book. I had the one birding book at the time, still have it. I would spend hours studying and thinking of the day I could travel to each of the colored areas on each distribution maps in my bird book. Pelicans ranked among the highest of my "wanted birds". Birds like the California Condor, Golden Eagle, Vermilion Flycatcher and Road Runners did as I recall rank higher. I still have not seen a Condor.

In July, 1975 I stood in a marshy backwater of the Yellowstone River. An unbelievably large white feather had lured me from the comfort of a dry trail into ice cold water well over the tops of my boots. It floated barley touching the surface of the water as if it had no weight.
I waded in deeper and examined the feather.

My mind raced through all of those distribution maps I had studied for countless hours and made the logical choice. I mentally declared it to be a Swan feather and turned to make my way to higher ground. I climbed back up to the narrow trail and looked back to the river below me. From my right saw a string of white pearls silently gliding above the river's surface. The string slowed, dropped lower to the water and turned to their left as they dropped their feet and slid to a stop on the marsh just feet from where I had picked up the feather. My jaw dropped along with the feather. Eight brilliant white American Pelicans were before me decompressing and adjusting to their new static environment.
My feet were very cold.

After a few moments the group started to drink, vocalize and interact with each other like the were comparing notes about the flight in as a hush fell over the backwater. The closest bird looked up at me and I could see it blink as it focused in on me. I was instantly struck by how large and primitive it looked. As if a portal had opened from another dimension and we were both sharing a “first contact” moment. "My" pelican notice it’s companions moving toward the river's current and turned to followed. One by one they entered the flow of the river and disappeared behind the trees headed downstream.

I was left in the silence of the moment.

American Pelican

This is not one of the birds from 1975. I took this picture in 2009 in Eastern Oregon. It is the only image of an American Pelican I have. Sorry, they have been hard to come by.

==================================================

Last month my wife and I spent a few days in Seaside, Oregon. One day I had to myself and I crafted a plan to find some Brown Pelicans and Heermann’s Gulls. Both of these species breed much further South but during the late Summer and Fall they wander North along the West coast. These wanderings vary from year to year with food supplies and the weather playing a large part in how far and for how long they travel. It also limits opportunities to see and photograph them. Both were lofty prizes I wanted.

I searched for three hours and covered over sixty miles. I reached the last place I had planned to visit after doing my map recon the night before. I found a the jetty at a small marina that looked promising. I approached form the South and saw ab-so-lute-ly nothing.

Tired and disappointed I lowered my camera and as if on cue, three Brown Pelicans materialized from my left just feet above the water. They turned directly toward me, rose up and flew over my head. They kept turning and landed on the far side of the jetty.

I worked my way to the other side of the jetty and found a small group of Heermann's Gulls.

They stood their ground as I approached.

This side of the jetty was shaded and sheltered from the wind. I could see a large group of the Pelicans a hundred yards or so ahead.
It took a few moments for me to realize there were hundreds of Heermann's Gulls between me and the Brown Pelicans sleeping in the rocks. There was very little movement and almost no bird noise you would expect in such a large collection of birds.

I took a few quick pictures and backtracked off the jetty as fast as possible. I did not want to startle hundreds of sleeping birds for a few pictures. The light was not at a good angle and the dark birds against the dark rocks did not look as if the had much contrast between them. The later is what happens when you forget to take your sunglasses of before trying to take pictures.

==========================================================

All summer long my wife and I have been trying to get away to the Washington coast for a day with the dogs on the beach. The summer slipped away.
Last Friday the weather report looked like the last reasonable day on the coast for a long, long time to come. We were both off, the tank was full and the dogs are always ready to go to the beach, any beach. We figured we would get some Dungeness crabs in Tokeland and search for mushrooms in a campground that produce some amazing Boletes last year. Had to settle for fresh shrimp and the mushrooms had already been picked over.

The weather was amazing for the time of year and the Pelicans were in a photogenic mood.

Brown Pelicans, immature on the left and non breeding adult on the right.

Incoming! Brown Pelicans effortlessly ride the winds along the tops of the wave on their massive wings.

Notice the pouch on the bird second from the top. Baggage?

" His bill will hold more than his belican"

An observation deck in Westport, Washington was a perfect location. With bright sunlight to my back and strings of Brown Pelicans streaming by at or just above eye level how could you not get a great picture?

We had a very nice day.

There are more Pelicans today then when I first heard Mr. Merritt's poem.

The effects the pesticide DDT in the 1960's and 70's took a heavy toll on all birds near the top of their respective food chains. Pelican populations suffered massive losses during theses times prompting protection under a variety of state and federal laws. DDT interfered with the proper formation of egg shells causing the loss of countless birds. DDT has been banned for decades in the United States and all most all of the affected species are recovering.

With the environment on the mend and state and federal protections in place these ancient birds should be around for us to enjoy for a long time.

Now, if we can keep them from being soaked in crude oil they should do just fine.

Escalation

2010-11-14T18:07:00.000-08:00

In the past I had introduced you to Red.

He was the antagonist in my blog entry titled; Red, Phoebe and Lister. I wrote it in September, 2008.

http://birdmandea.blogspot.com/2008/09/red-pheobe-and-lister.html

Anyway... Two years have passsed since then and things have steadily escalated as the trio have aged. All three have grown to maturity. All three have determined what they feel is "their" territory. All three have strong feelings about having unwanted intruders in said territories.

Too cliche? Too predictable?

All three have become little butts.

They may look sweet and innocent after a long work out at the beach but at a moment notice they will launch out the door to defend their sacred territory.

Lister has grown into a sixty-five pound "bag of meat". Muscle, bone and fast. Lister is always serious, neurotic and looking for something to eat. Come on, if you were Red wouldn't the sight of Lister looking like this bearing down on you not make you think twice about taunting him? Red, what are you thinking?

Phoebe is right there with Lister weighing in at dainty sixty-two pounds. She is more playful and a true Alpha dog. She is a red dog. If you have never owned a red dog you will not know what I mean.
(She is three biscuits short of a treat box.)

What is she looking at you may ask?

Evil

So, with all of this "dog power" at my disposal you would think my yard would be a little more secure.

Yet, Red is running amuck.

He has turned my outbuilding into his bachelor pad. From his penthouse he went so far as to remove pieces of the recently installed insulation from the attic and carry it over one hundred feet through the yard to give it to his girlfriend who used it in the nest she was making in the attic of our house. I could not close up any holes while there may have been babies up there.

When I was able to find where he was going in and out of the out building I would cover them up...

...he would seek out alternatives.

The window damage was bad enough, frustrated he then went and just opened up a hole in the wall as if to show me who really had the control in this dance.

I filled this hole with expanding foam when I saw he was out of the hole tormenting the dogs from the Dogwood tree. I was going to cover the foam with screen the next day when it was not raining. Well so much for that plan. He waited until the next morning and beat me to the punch. Punched right through the foam.

As well as destroying property Red has become crazed with the glut of food available this fall. He has already started to store food in places I know I can not screen off now with out denying him food over the winter. So our dance continues.

Red is in the process off harvesting Spruce cones and Sunflower seeds. Under the Spruce tree he has amassed a midden pile that is feeding the mushroom understory that he is also consuming. I do like the Prince mushrooms also but not enough to take them from Red.

Well the truth is... I like my liver and with all of the heavy metal contamination in our area from the defunct smelter upwind I figure the odds of Red coming down with cancer before something else gets him are pretty slim.

If Red doesn't get the mushrooms the flies do. This one is laying fast hatching eggs. The little maggots will ruin a mushroom within minutes of hatching.

His table manners with the sunflower are just as bad. No, worse. He is just throwing them everywhere. I mean everywhere. He romps through the garage with his mouth bulging on is way to the attic where my wife swears he is moving furniture around. Everywhere you look there are sunflower seeds and plant parts. It's like a sunflower Armageddon.

"I love the smell of sunflowers in the morning"! Or was it napalm?

Gravity means nothing to Red. Gravity...it's a law damn it... you have to obey it!!

Twice now I have rounded the corner of a brick wall and ran headlong into him as he was about to round the corner. In that fraction of a second it takes the brain to react to the flight or fight response that takes over in such instances, Red's smaller brain has the hands down advantage. He always breaks eye contact first as he explodes leaving a cloud of seeds, fur and squirrel shit behind. His larger eyes in relation to the shorter distance the information has to travel in the almond sized brain allows him to bark, turn and run before I could shudder to a stop and yell "shit". I hate that. I hate that. I hate that. Of course the dogs are usually with me and they react somewhere in between the squirrel-human dynamic outlined. This variable just makes my reaction all the more entertaining.

I rule you.

Turning the "EVIL" on!

Gravity damn it ...GRAVITY!

OK, now you're just showing off. Being a show off really doesn't help support you point of view.

And as Red gets to ravage this sunflower unchallenged...

,,,Phoebe looks on helplessly.

Time has passed.

These pictures were all taken about a month ago. I wanted time to pass to see how it would play out. Red has secured his food supply and become more secretive. He still barks out to let us know where he is and let us know he know we are there. He is not as aggressive or reckless.
I have thought about this and I think there was a bigger force at work here. During the height of Red's antics there also was a lot of bird activity around the collecting of the sunflower seeds. Chickadees and Steller's Jays were the most active harvesters of the seeds with a few Pine Siskins and Gold Finches that would sneak in and out. What was of the most interest were the actions of the Anna's Hummingbirds in the yard.

The Anna's were protective of the sunflowers. When the male Anna's caught birds feeding he would drive them off but the hummingbird would not approach or challenge Red.

The male humming birds were going through a pseudo-spring where they were acting territorial and preforming their courtship flights. This is where the male Anna's silently flies straight up into the air from a perch then turns and rockets earthward turning upward sharply at some point in space where he thinks it is right and the feathers create a sharp and distinctive "chirp". The Chickadees, Juncos and Bewick's Wrens were also singing garbled and shortened versions of their respective springtime songs. I think they were all under the influence of a pseudo spring. They amount of daylight in each day was the same as it would be as if spring were coming on. This daylight window along with clear and mild weather was topped off with the abundant food supply.

Just a though. Just throwing it out there to see who it pisses off,?

Other thoughts?

As easy as Red's life seems to be, he is constantly on guard to protect his way of life. One eye one everything that moves, his food, his girl, his world. He has to be aggressive, alert and an asshole. The dogs are no real threat to him at all. They can not run up the walls or climb the tree. The only threat I pose is if I step on him as he is shitting and getting out of my way at the corner.

There are others in the neighborhood who are keeping an eye on Red and his domain.

And that is where is is keeping his other eye.

Wish you were here

2010-11-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

DESPICABLE

2010-10-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have a few other blog posts I should be working on right now. I do owe my loving wife one about our resident squirrel but I think this one is time sensitive and overwhelming. I promise the squirrel is next.

I think of myself as a person who shies away from the extremes. Yelling and screaming while foaming at the mouth and arms flailing about never really seems to benefit anyone’s argument. I think of myself as a liberal and I feel that my blog stories and photos about my wildlife encounters do not offend anyone. I am not a tree huger, I have been know to have put my arm around a few while drinking beer. If I wanted to write a blog about my pet rant of the day, I would. I want to write about animals. I always have. With the invent of commuters, the internet, digital cameras and all of the peripheral shit, I get to share. Have you ever wondered why James Audubon’s drawings of large birds were posed so strangely? He shot the birds put them on the paper, traced around them and colored them in.

I digress.

Last night I was brutally reminded of something that I truly believe in,

“If you are not outraged, you’re not paying attention”

I was reading the local news online last night when I came across a story about the punishment phase of a country and western singers hunting violation case. I nearly passed it over. Then I remembered reading a story not too long ago about Ted Nugent and how he was busted for shooting an illegal deer in California. He killed an under age spike buck over a bait station. Both of these are violations in California but wait for it...wait for it... it was filmed and televised..... as an advertisement for the company selling the baiting stations! The first time the California Wildlife Enforcement officers saw it, IT WAS ON TELEVISION! In the end they were able to slap him on the wrist and he moved on. So who screwed up now?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/18/ted-nugent-guilty-of-deer_n_686179.html

I do not want to taint you with my feelings about the two pieces of shit, scum of the earth ,dirt bags rat bastards you are about to be introduced to, before you have a chance to watch the two video links below so you can form your own opinion.

http://www.komonews.com/news/entertainment/105820988.html

I have lived my life believing and acting upon this, Character is not a measure of what I do, it was a measure of what I do when no one sees me do it. Am I right? Please if I am that far off the mark, PLEASE, guide me back.

Cubby’s tragic end was despicable.

No matter where you stand in the hunting debate, the actions of these two men are unforgivable. The fines and forfeiture of material things will never make up for the damage done to the moral fiber of our collective hunting culture. They are also free to walk the streets among us.

Cross Billed Crow

2010-09-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

I try to never leave the house with out my camera. Last week I ran out the door to do my errand orbit and looked at the camera sitting on the table by the front door. I thought to myself...if you don't take it you'll see that Black tailed Buck and the velvet should be off it's antlers by now......

I had too much momentum as I flew by and the camera stayed at home.

I was nearing the post office In DuPont when standing on a lawn among a small grouping of crows was a scruffy looking crow with a grossly deformed bill. Instantly I could feel the anger well up within myself, I could clearly see in my minds eye the camera sitting on the table by the door and not in my hand taking pictures of this rare bird. I knew that there might be an opportunity to relocate it again in the future but I was not feeling very optimistic at the time. There are hundreds of crows all over the area and in every direction. It appeared to have been eating enough food to survive to adult size but that was not much solace with no camera in hand.

With out a picture only I knew it was there, telling you about it would be rather dull for both of us.

My next orbit through DuPont I had my camera under my right elbow. Two blocks away from the post office there it was walking along in the gutter on a quiet side street. I pulled to the curb, rolled the window down and took the following series of photos.

I have no clue as to the age of this bird. It is in a pretty rough condition. From the looks of the feet it may not be all that old. I am sure the condition of the bill makes it difficult to keep it's feathers in prime condition. Without healthy feathers and winter approaching as well as the handicap of the deformed bill, I wonder what it's chances are.

Grace...and a lack of it.

2010-06-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

“LOOK....it’s a Pterodactyl!!!”

I cannot tell how many times and with how many kids I used that line. It never failed to get the kids to drop what they were doing and look skyward to see a Great Blue Heron gracefully floating over head.

For many of the kids I took to the field that was the closest they ever got to a Great Blue Heron. Herons in general tend to keep their distance from humans. I have had rare instance within parks or preserves where individual birds had lost their fear of humans and allow people to approach them. Sometimes close enough for great photo opportunities. In Florida I noticed that Herons and Egrets would cozy up fairly close to fishermen along the waters edge to snarf up any discarded fish or bait.

Herons often know of your where location long before you know of theirs. They usually sneak away or silently take to the wing and gracefully float away.

Here on the Southern end of the Salish Sea Great Blue Herons do not inter act with humans very well. On any given day I could take you out birding and we would see from five to twenty individual birds but rarely get within a hundred yards without being in a car or in thick cover.

Caught in the open on the middle of the dam this Heron had little choice but to freeze. I had a little cover and did not move, as time passed the Heron slowly walked back to it's side of the dam and slipped in to the cattails and disappeared.

Herons are a fairly “primitive” bird unchanged for millions of years. This primitive quality is what lead to me calling them “Pterodactyls” . Early on in their time line they developed physical attributes that made them efficient and adaptable allowing them to feed on a variety of prey in a wide array of habitats.

This Heron has chosen a very dangerous place to roost. The salmon net was left behind during the previous run. Made from synthetic fibers it would take decades to breakdown unlike a net made from natural materials. One day during low tide I saw a guy with a propane torch burning the net free from the stump. We talked briefly, he was an avid sport fisherman with nothing nice to say about the local tribe that had left the net behind. Who knows how many animals were saved this act.

This beauty was bathing in the fresh water coming out of the Garrison Spring drain pipe.

The next three Heron photos were taken at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge in March of 2010. It was early in the morning and s/he remained calm as three of us stood nearby taking photos. As we started to walk away it began to follow giving us the chance to all of the pictures you could ever want of a Great Blue Heron.
Still I want more!

Heavy Winter rains and high tides cause small islands of vegetation to float out into the Puget Sound. This Great Blue Heron either "drifted" off while as asleep or chose this isolated privet piece of real estate for a snooze.

..............................................................................................................................................

A few weeks ago I took the following series of pictures that I found humorous. I am sure the heron found nothing funny about it at all.

Here is the set up, the dam has a fish ladder on the far side where access is controlled by the State. At the end of the sixteen foot drop the ladder takes a ninety degree turn where it discharges into the saltwater side of the creek. Herons often fight for control of this choice position. The turbulent waters conceal the salmon until they rise up to cross over the first step of the fish ladder where the herons wait to pick them off. When times are good (for the herons) as many a ten fish per hour can be picked off. When one heron is full or tired the next one in the established pecking order moves in to take it's turn and so on down the line. This goes on every day until the tide moves the water level to where fishing is not possible or they lose light sufficient to see the fish.

This heron is fishing on the incoming tide. Just a little too early!

After all of that s/he still managed to hold on to the fish. It hardly looks big enough for all of the effort and risk.

SO... if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does does it make a sound?

Of course it does...silly human.

If a heron falls into the water and no one sees it, is the heron embarrassed?

I am not sure about that but I thought it sure was funny!
..........................................................................................................................

The Watering Hole...part two

2010-05-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

A day can pretty much go to shit when a guy with a bulldozer shows up.

The Watering Hole

2010-05-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

In my day to day orbits I am always looking for birding opportunities. A few weeks ago I noticed a female Western Bluebird on a wire near a nesting box that has been on a tree stump for the past twenty years. Each time I pass by the tree I stop for a few moments to see if the Bluebirds are occupying the box. I have not seen any evidence that they are.

A short distance away is a staging area used by the military to offload troops from transport trailers before they march to a near by training area. When I was in the military we lovingly called them “cattle cars”. The truck and trailer traffic on the graveled area has formed a depression on the wood line side where water collects and forms a large puddle during the rains. The puddle is near a road and the wood line but other then for troop movements no one visits the site. Earlier this week I was returning home from a chore orbit and passed by the nest box and again found nothing. The puddle is on the way back to the hard topped road so it passed by it. Just as I approached the clouds opened up and the sun light blazed down on the flowering Scot’s Broom.

The puddle has been steadily diminishing in size since the weather warmed and the Spring rains have subsided. Amazingly even with the Northwest being noted for all of it’s rain when it is not raining water does become scarce quickly. I stopped a hundred yards short of the puddle and scanned it with my binos. Immediately I saw a male Western Tanager take off from the one of the three smaller pools the puddle had been reduced to. One second later my foot was on the gas. Being a fairly undisturbed area the birds do not take offense to cars parking near the water.

A couple weeks ago I pulled up and watched several Brown-headed Cowbirds feeding which then evolved in to a courtship dances.

Within moments a female Western Tanager and a male White-crowned Sparrow landed and suddenly took off.

Then the male White Crowned Sparrow came back and abruptly took off. A male Barn Swallow landed then took off.

A female Robin landed, gathered a bill full of mud and abruptly took off. I was beginning to notice a pattern here.

A pair of Goldfinches landed at the waters edge. The ghostly image of the cause of all of the stress at the watering hole suddenly appeared. A Killdeer that had been hiding in plain sight. The killdeer had been silently charging each bird as it landed a the edge of the water. I did not really see it until it lifted up and took wing to drive off the Goldfinches. I began to worry that I might have unknowingly driven over a Killdeer nest hidden in the gravel. In my previous visits I had not seen Killdeers at the puddle and had no reason to bring it to mind.

My worries quickly faded when I caught sight of movement on the far side of the smaller puddle. A Killdeer chick was moving toward the water. In a few moments I found two others and a second adult Killdeer. The second adult Killdeer kept to the edge of the grass while the young approached the water, all the time it was sounding off with a regular “peep”. It would be best described as a rhythmic beacon allowing the chicks to know how far and in with direction the adult was. At this point I made this obvious conclusion, the second adult that was “peeping” was the female and the defender of the water was the male. He was clearing the way for the youngster that his mate was leading to the puddle.

Once the male had complete control of the area the female fell silent. She began to walk directly at while I was sitting in the driver’s seat of my car.

I froze not wanting to cause her to sound an alarm. I found that I was holding my breath as the male began to walk to intercept her about ten feet from my car window. This whole time I was using the camera to cover my face so I slowly moved to a steady position and started taking this series of pictures.

The female moved off and readjusted her feathers.

The male move off in the opposite direction to a larger portion of the puddle. A hen Mallard landed and began to feed. When ever the hen neared the edge of the puddle the Killdeer would rush over to it trying to intimidate her and drive her off as he had with all of the other birds. She ignored him.

After the adult Killdeer had moved back into the tall grass two of the young Killdeer moved closer to where I was sitting. This one offered my an unprecedented opportunity for close ups.

Today it was cold and raining again. I stopped by the puddle to see what was happening. Only the five Killdeers were there. The instant I got out of the car one of the adults dropped to the ground and pretended to have an injured wing. The other, further away sounded an alarm and the three young birds scattered.

While I was standing there looking at the puddle with my camera in hand a large white pickup truck pulled off of the hard top and drove up to me. The driver, a man with a big mustache and cowboy hat asked, "are you the contractor that's going to fill in the hole?"
............................................................................................................

For more photos and a another encounter with Killdeer, I posted a Blog entry back in May of 2008.
It can be seen at;

http://birdmandea.blogspot.com/2008/05/fuzzies.html

First day on the job

2010-05-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my wife lovingly planted her baby tomatoes. When she was done she turned and asked "do you think it will freeze this week?". I shrugged it off thinking back to how many Mays of the past twenty or twenty-five Mays that I have been here had frost. Then I thought of how many that were so cold the Bees did not get out to pollinate the fruit trees. Then my mind drifted off the the splendorous few that were idyllic and magical. I grunted "I don't think so".

This week the weather quickly went to shit.

The temperatures dropped into the high thirties with wind gust hitting upwards of sixty miles per hour. Snow levels dropped to two thousand feet in the mountains, thunder, lighting, pelting rain sleet, hail and ( I love this one) deluged rain while the sun was shining on the marble sized hail on the road causing white out conditions WHILE a constant green swirl of leaves freshly stripped from the branches stuck the the car windshield wipers as the windows fogged over.

You know when things are bad when the open water Harbor Seals run for cover.

The eagle nest had a good twenty foot sway going before the big winds blew in on Tuesday. All wildlife was hunkered down and sitting tight.

At some point during this prolonged tempest new eyes opened for the first time. Last month four pairs of Canada Geese took a calculated risk by building nests and laying eggs. These "early birds" reaped a disappointing success. Two of the pairs had one gosling each, one pair had tree and the best was a pair with five goslings. The success rates have been much higher in past years. These ten little goslings as well a few other other surprises were all greeted by the harsh weather.

Wasn't there suppose to be a belly button here?

After a prolonged search the said belly button was indeed missing. S/he was actually instinctively preening after it's first icy cold swim from where the nest was to where food could be found.

Mother will show you what to eat.

Any port in a storm.

Never was a phrase so literal. Moments after I took this picture a near white out sleet storm and wind gust churned up whitecaps on the tidal waters of the creek and drove both for better cover.

I went to recover the memory card from the remote wildlife camera I have monitoring the Wood Duck nest box at the Beaver pond after the winds died down. The drake was still guarding the pond waters beneath the nest box. While I was taking pictures of him swimming toward me the beaver approached from behind me and I did not see it until it swam into frame.

The beaver went about harvesting cattail shoots for breakfast.

I was well camouflaged and motionless as he approached. In my personal wildlife encounters having a wild wood duck and and a wild beaver swim with in twenty feet of my as I was taking pictures was moving.

The fade away quartering shot.

To my surprise another hen Wood Duck had successfully hatched and escorted three young to the main pond near the man made dam. There is no way of knowing how many started the journey.

Some of the other creek residents opt for a less risky breeding plan. My new friend here has his territory all staked out and is busy chasing other males away. While watching carefully for intruding males he allowed a number of presumably females to tour the patch of cattails and shrubs he was lording over. He has a plan.

The weather turned around today and was on of those spectacular days I had dreamed of. Winds died down to a breeze and temperatures went up twenty degrees. Giant fluffy Homer Simpson's clouds filled the sky.

The tomatoes were covered and look great.

Bandits at six o'clock!!!!

2010-04-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

During the recent salmon release over a dozen visiting Bald Eagles were tolerated by the resident nesting pair. Some of the visitors were the offspring of this pair and some were just those that have figured out the timing of the feast laid out before them.

Even with enough fish for every eagle to catch and eat their fill they seem to relish the sport of stealing them from each other. In some respects stealing fish from one another is actually a display their physical fitness and establishes a hierarchy for future mating opportunities. Here is just one exchange that lasted only a few seconds but beautifully illustrates their grace and strength.

This series of photos started with a small flock of Common Mergansers herding a school of young salmon in to shallow water just ahead of the incoming tide. A "flock" of Bald Eagles lifted up off of the surrounding trees. I do not know how many Eagles make a flock but in one snap shot of time I could count thirteen eagles wheeling around over the fish in the shallows.

I believe the eagle bottom center is the resident male from the pair nesting in tree line behind these photographs. He swooped down through he firestorm of circling talons and neatly picked up a juicy young salmon. Instantly he was in a "dog fight" for his prize. Seven of the eagles focused their attention on him and the chase was on. After one tight orbit four of the pursuers lost airspeed and dropped out of the race. About then I remembered that if I did not take any pictures I would not have any pictures. Duh. I missed about two seconds of the chase gawking.

The top eagle tried to cut the corner and close the distance between it's self and the leader but loses airspeed and falls behind.

Young eagles appear larger then adult eagles due to their feathers being slightly larger. Think of them as training feathers. There are advantages to this, more surface area equals more speed. The bottom eagle has been moving downward while closing the space between it's self and the prize. Not having a fish to slow it down allows it just enough of an edge to close the gap.

The leader knows he is running out of time and space. The bottom eagle is now in a position to take the fish if the leader does not have the speed to pull away. The number three eagle knows the leader can not go lower so up is the only answer and starts to close that gap.

As the leader pulls up he looses airspeed and the trailing bandits know that one of them has a chance if they keep pushing.

The number two eagle is just inches away from reaching out and taking the fish with it's mouth while the number three is ready to pick it off in the air if number two misses.

A truly amazing feat of aerial skills!

Knowing when to cut your loss is critical.

The leader's choices are limited. He had lost too much airspeed and cannot really afford an injury if the pursuing eagles overshoot the fish and the fish may not really be worth all of this effort to begin with. By dropping the fish suddenly he is of no interest. The number two bird applied the air brake too late to recover the falling fish before it hit the water below.

If you can not fly with the big birds, don't leave the perch!

Our leader turns and takes out his frustration on an eagle that was not even in the chase! The number two bird dropped like a rock but could not keep up with the fish.

None of these birds got the fish in the end, it fell back in to the shallows filled with Common Merganser bills that eagerly snapped it up.

This was just one of scores of aerial combat encounters. Some were winners and some were losers. Of course the salmon lost in almost ever case.

Dam it damn it...part three

2010-04-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

If you have not read the other two parts of this blog please take the time and do it. Scroll down and you will find part two before you find part one.

http://birdmandea.blogspot.com/2010/02/dam-it-damn-it.html

http://birdmandea.blogspot.com/2010/02/dam-it-damn-itpart-two.html

Why? I do not want this blog entry to spoil anything for you. If you have been following the blog, I thank you and hope that after this one I will not have to apologize for it and you will continue to follow my blog.

Spring is here and it is a bitch. The temperatures for the first eleven days have been below normal with one storm after another.

The Canada Geese, Mallards, Wood Ducks and Crows have all paired off. Ravens are building nests and the Bald Eagles are sitting on their eggs.
Between the miserable bouts of weather I have been visiting the beaver’s pond hoping to catch a glimpse of the beavers. The winds have made trips into the woods to risky. After the last bout of wind storms heavy branches were littered everywhere and several were stuck in the ground like javelins. My remote camera has not been triggering on anything for the past three weeks.

On the days that I have ventured into the woods they have been spectacular.

I went to the beaver pond to change the batteries in the remote camera. Before getting to the camera the large beaver swam out of the lodge and down stream the entire length of the pond. It was followed by a smaller beaver that could not hold it's breath as long. The little guy stopped, pulled out of the water and began to harvest a cattail for breakfast. I was able to photograph it as it returned to the lodge.

This male American Robin escorted me through his selected territory as I approached the beaver pond and he was there to escort me back through his territory as I left. He was very careful to ensure I did not spend anytime with out supervision, very careful.

The Bushtits are building their nests this month. They make a very unusual sock shaped nest decorated with bits of moss and lichen. If I had not heard the Bushtits arguing about where to put the next twig I would have never seen the nest at all. Here the Male is head first in the nest while the Female keeps a sharp eye on the front yard.

The Black Tailed Deer are shedding their winter coats leaving them looking scruffy and ragged.

A rare treat. A pair of Ravens are building a nest near the beaver pond. For the most part Ravens do not like to be near humans. The size of the creek drainage provides enough cover and privacy for them to feel comfortable enough to nest.

While sitting over the beaver pond letting the sounds of the forest settle around me, I noticed an animal swimming through the flat waters. I thought it was the young beaver pictured above until it closed in on my concealed position. A wild Mink was patrolling it's territory. I was motionless and the sounds of the camera did not seem to effect the Mink's drive to get to where it was headed.

In the past I have seen one living Mink near the dam and one dead Mink on the bridge. Being able to capture a wild Mink with my camera is one of my proudest achievements.

(Obviously I am very easy to please.)

The Male Song Sparrows have also defined their territories. They will sing loudly to proclaim what is theirs but do not provide the escorts like the Robins do.

Wherever the ground is soaking wet Skunk Cabbage finds what it needs to thrive. This plant is a member of the Lilly family and is able to produce it's own heat to give it a jump on growing earlier in the season when the weather may turn too cool for other plants to grow. The flower is large and impressive. The fragrance is reminiscent of it's namesake. If there ever was proof that mother nature had a sense of humor here it is, a pretty flower that smells like a skunk.

The first rays of sun that reach through the thick canopy of our temperate rain forests fall on the Trilliums. The flowers start out white and slowly become purple as the age.

Where the creek spills out of the canyon into the basin above the dam it has formed a broad sand bar. The local kids use the flat sands and shallow water to practice their skim boarding skills. As the weather warms scores of young people use the area to party. The local wildlife has to adapt to the "intrusion". The kids just want to have fun on the water and in the sun.

The unseen costs to the local wildlife become evident as the weather warms and the Canada Geese that have selected the same sandbar to nest on are displaced by the kids. The effort to relocate the nest may be in vain. When they are displaced they may have difficulty in finding a suitable site that is not already taken by another pair. Canada Geese are not tolerant of over crowding during nesting season.

The Wood Ducks have paired off and are becoming secretive. Soon the Females will disappear to lay and incubate their eggs either in the few man made nest boxes placed in the woods or in natural cavities they find on their own deep in the woods. This Female Wood Duck is easy to track, she has a color abnormality around her eyes making her stand out from her sisters on the drainage.

The cost of emotional investment

This is a personal note, for me, one of the hardest things about watching a group of animals closely is that you begin to relate to them. You think you know them then and by doing so you tend to extend a level of emotion and empathy to their hardships. I know at night when the winds hit sixty five miles per hour with the temperatures dipping to the high thirties and the rain starts, there is an eagle sitting on eggs in the top of a wildly swaying tree on the ridge line over the creek. In the morning I drive down there in my heated car with a cup of hot coffee after eating a hot breakfast to see if the tree is still there. So far it has survived. But I know the day may come.

Remember this Beaver? S/he was the catalyst of this whole "Dam it Damn it" blog.

Yesterday the inevitable came to pass. In one of those twists of fate I was in the right place at the wrong time. The beaver I had found and photographed in the first blog entry “Dam it damn it” was dead on the side of the road.

Hit by a vehicle in the dark about six hundred yards for the safety of the pond. Six hundred yards from the smaller beaver I just showed you. Just one hundred feet from the safety of the creek. Why was it up on the hardtop? Who knows, who know what a beaver thinks. For my emotional investment, I am just left with a hole. I am torn, I want to go pull the remote camera and never go back while I want to watch and see if the beaver family survives. Beavers as a whole will but what about this family unit.

I went back down that road three hours after I found the cold body, it was gone. Who had taken it I do not know but if I had not seen it I would have never known and kept looking endlessly for it to surface in the pond.
Now I know I will not see it and that makes the thought of trekking in the forest just a little less appealing.

Life goes on. There are other adventures waiting to be lived and new chapters can not begin until old ones end.

Cock of the Walk

2010-03-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

I do not know when or how it happened but a little white Bantum Rooster appeared and took up residence at the dam on the creek. I first noticed him in the middle of February then again a few days ago. I can not imagine how he would have gotten there on his own and I would hope that someone was not so cruel hearted as to dump him off between a pond, a busy road and a thick forest. Some people are just assholes.

Today he noticed me or rather he noticed my car. I parked and walked to take a closer look a a possible Kingfisher nesting site. As I walked to the bridge I heard the rooster crow from a blackberry thicket between the road and the fresh water pool behind the dam. It was early and cold so my scouting trip was not all that long. On my way back I was greeted by the rooster. He had taken up a commanding position and challenged me as I approached.

With all of the predators that I have seen in the area this little guy needs to watch his step. Just after I had heard his crowing I saw two Raccoons running across the road. The heavy traffic is an even greater hazard.

WALKING ON THE HOOD OF MY CAR IS NOT A SMART MOVE.

In my camera bag I carry three used pills containers filled with layer crumble, cracked corn and plain bird seed.

Why do I travel with bird food?

You never know when you will need it.

Breakfast is served.

Dam it Damn it........part two.

2010-02-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

In writing my last Blog , Dam it Damn it, I collected more material then I could get in there due to my excitement about getting the beaver’s picture posted for all to see. There was a lot more to what I saw on my quest to capture the pictures then the end result.

I grew up in Wisconsin and went to public school. I remember science of the day made such a big deal as to how superior mankind was over the other animals. MAN ...the maker of tools. MAN...the "namer" of things, MAN has an opposable thumb, blaa blaa blaa. I struck me in a funny way, just as much as science wanted to displace religion and dogma to answer the questions of life it was becoming a religion in it’s self with MAN as the pinnacle of what evolution was about, and we were there. So what was the difference? Man was the answer either way.

I started some shit in my high school anthropology class while the instructor was going on about the superiority levels of the different hominids over the millions of years. He and I got along very well but he was an ass and was quick to point it out when he introduced himself. He took pleasure in seeing how wound up he could get students to express what they thought and would argue the opposite view to make them refine their thoughts so they improve their skills at how they expressed themselves. ( This did however put him at odds with parents, fellow faculty members, school management and the school board ). “Tools” he claimed were the single crystallizing and defining thing that separated man from all other animals. We had walked on the Moon, end of subject.

My argument was that man was not the only tool maker and user. The examples I used came from the nature shows of the era. They showcased Egyptian Vultures using rocks to break eggs, Galapagos Finches selecting and using thorns to probe out insects from dead wood and Chimpanzees using plant fibers to tease termites out of their underground colonies. He argued each one on it’s own merits and discounted them in order. He lost it and had trouble finding his way back when I argued the role of the beaver as an urban planner and construction company. He could deal with the others to a point but a rodent was not going to stand with MAN when it came to how the world was shaped.

“WE” have learned a lot since the Seventies about animals and what is a “tool” and what is a “tool maker”. Language has also been redefined. We do not stand all that far from the other animals we just tend to talk about them more then they talk about us.

When was the last time you thought about beavers and how they shaped your world? Depending on where you grew up you fit in to one of three categories when it comes to beavers, love , hate or indifferent. If it were not for beavers the exploration of North American would have been completely different. The desire to wear hats and fur from the beaver drove whole national economies. Gold and beaver pelts were interchangeable in some economies. This had already led the beaver to extinction in Great Britain while nearly wiping them out in Europe. When they were found to be plentiful in North America, the English and French could not get here fast enough. The Hudson Bay Company opened shop just six miles from where I sit right now to trade for furs in the early 1800's. That was when this part of the country belonged to England, by the time the United States took possession beavers were not plentiful and other resources proved to be more lucrative.

In time the North American beaver faced the same fate as the European beavers. Low numbers and a change in fashion eased the trapping pressure. Beavers did eventually receive some degree of protection through hunting and trapping laws. Man's need to reshape and claim land for him self brought beavers and man into direct conflict. The beaver's brain is "hard wired" to be drawn to the sound of running water then reduce its flow. Researches found that is you place a tape recording of running water near a beavers pond it will put sticks and mud on the speaker to try and slow the flow of the water even though they know there is no water present.

Scotland today is trying to reintroduce beavers to their native range with animals they captured in Norway. The difficulty in getting them back is not the animal husbandry end but the politics. Land owners do not want them because they will chew up trees. The few that have been transplanted have not been received well at all. Some have been shot and others are missing, or driven off by poachers, vandals and land owners. What I found the most interesting about the plight of these beavers is that when stressed and driven from the area where they were release at least one of the transplants took it’s chances and swam downstream to the ocean and searched until it found a new freshwater watershed to explore. No one thought that would happen. But there was a lot we do not understand. You have to do what you have to do to survive. You take your chances.

Canada Geese are moving, not all are moving North but there is a lot of moving going on.

Last fall I notice this white goose mixed in with a flock of Canada Geese. Last week I saw it again as it's group cycled back through the lower reaches of the creek. The American flag was left behind by the kids who use the creeks smooth sandy bottom to play with their "skim boards" during the warmer months. This past summer someone put several flags up and I do to want to sound unpatriotic but they just ended up becoming cheap and unsightly trash.

Personal view...
Patriotism is more than sticking a cheap Chinese made flags in the woods then forgetting to pick up you beer cans and cigarette butts.

The water that slows behind the beaver's dam allows sediments to collect and settle allowing plants like these cattails to take root. In turn the cattails become food and protection for many other animals as well as filtering the water creating clear pools for the beavers to swim in.

Here a mature Painted Turtle suns it's self in the unseasonably warm February weather. Painted Turtles have smooth carapaces, only when they mature do you see the convolutions in the plates on their shells. Turtles being cold blooded need protected places to pull out of the cool water and warm up to digest their food. The warmer a turtle is, the more alert and harder it is to approach. The cooler the turtle, the cooler the turtle picture.

This beaver's pond is not particularity large or deep but it has caught the attention of these four Wood Ducks. Wood Duck are cavity nesting ducks. Even though these "Woodies" are not very big it still takes a fairly large tree to provide a nesting cavity spacious enough to lay and incubate eggs. With the reduction of old growth trees the number of nesting sites over the decades have decreased.

A few days after I found the beaver's lodge and set up my remote wildlife camera someone came in behind me and installed two Wood Duck nest boxes along the ponds edge. This box was put up just feet from my camera but I do not think the boxes installer even saw the camera. I had the camera mounted on a short tripod and covered it with a piece of camouflage netting. It is pictured in the part one of this posting.

Here is one of the Hen Woodies hiding from me behind the beaver's lodge.

Her handsome suitor was not far away.

Woodies incubate and hatch their eggs in the nest boxes then the young, less then a day old climb out of the box and drop to the ground or water below. The young hatch within a warm dark and secure cavity. The urge to follow their mothers calls pull them to the brink of a big world. Their first introduction to this world is a bone jarring ten foot plummet to the hard ground or cold water below.

I am hoping either pair of the Woodies I saw will take up the offer of low rent and give me a chance to photograph them near the box as the spring warms and nesting begins. I am scouting out places to set up a blind or the remote camera.

These beautiful little ducks are Hooded Mergansers, they are also cavity nesting ducks, They will be competing with the Woodies for the nest boxes. The male is on the right but he is not showing off his fantastic hood at the moment.

Mallards belong to a waterfowl group collectively called "dabbling ducks" because of their feeding methods. They feed on what ever they can reach, they can not dive for food. They are too buoyant. The regulated depth of the Beaver's pond gives them a secure and guaranteed place to feed. The surrounding cattails offer perfect nesting cover and ample food supply for their young. The hen will soon disappear for a month only to be seen again with down covered ducklings trailing behind.

This clear and constant water found in the beaver's little pond is of a great benefit to the local Kingfishers. They sit in the branches high overhead watching the water looking for minnows below the surface. They dive into the water compensating for the light distortion seizing their prey and lifting out of the water flying away to eat. This is a female Kingfisher. She has a rusty colored band across her chest while the males do not. The Kingfishers dig deep burrows in the sandy canyon walls along the creek. The Kingfishers make approaching the pond or location unseen very difficult. Nothing escapes their eyesight and their loud explosive "rattling" call alerts all of the surrounding wildlife. Sometimes I wish they would be feeding elsewhere to make it easier for me. But I guess if they were not there the experience would not be the same.

Song Sparrows are found in most every habitat around the Salish Sea and here is no different. This Male was practicing his song over the beaver's lodge, His song is not very enchanting this time of year. In birds like this a tiny gland in a part of the brain enlarges as the days grow longer. As the brain changes the songs begin to become longer, clearer and more complex. In the late Summer as the days shorten the gland reduces in size and the territorial singing behavior subsides for the Winter.

Song Sparrows capitalize on many types of food and the pond offers up many aquatic treats.

Back to the Beavers!

This is a photograph of a Beaver I took at the Northwest Trek Animal Park in Eatonville, Washington. They have a "nice" enclosure with a lodge and clear water to swim in. Here it is easy to see the adaptations the beavers have to make their aquatic lives much easier. Their ears, eyes and nose are all high on their heads so they can keep a low profile in the water while not missing anything going on around them. they can close off their nostrils and ears to prevent water entry. Their thick fur traps air against their body giving them buoyancy and conserving body heat. Eventually they do get soaked and need a safe place to thoroughly clean and dry their fur to survive. Catch 22, they need the lodge to dry off because they spend so much time in the water eating and making the lodge.

I collected this beaver skull over twenty-five years ago while living in Oklahoma. (Cars and Beavers do not play well together.) So why do I have a twenty-five plus year old beaver skull? You do not know me very well. At the time I wanted to save it so that if some day I or someone else could learn from it, it would hopefully save the life of another beaver. This was long before personal computers, the internet, and Blogging. Today here it is for me to share with you.

This was a large Beaver and the skull is over four inches long. Beavers have massive bones and muscles to generate the force needed to use the lower teeth as chisels to remove wood from trees. The mouth is designed to allow the teeth to protrude and gnaw on wood while the lips make a water proof seal keeping water out of the Beaver's mouth. This and their nostrils being able to seal up allows the beavers to chew under water while holding their breath.

This head on view shows the relationship of the incisors and molars to each other. The broad flat grinding surfaces on the molars are for chewing the bark and aquatic plants the beavers eat, Beavers do not eat wood. You can see the Beaver needs to have a lot of side to side to side movement while eating to chew it's food. The teeth never stop growing, if they did the Beaver would die. If the Beaver for some reason can not wear the teeth down at the rate that they grow or faster the teeth will over grow and prevent the beaver from eating properly and it will die. In the side view you can follow the curve of the teeth and see that they run deep in the the skull for a good foundation for leverage.

I made up a six inch scale to photograph with the skull and a sample of a beavers work to give you an idea of size. The beaver turns it's head sideways to brace it's top teeth and gnaw at a tree with it's lower teeth. It can take hours, days and sometimes weeks to gnaw down some trees. not all are for food, Dead wood offers not food value but works well as materials for building dams, lodges and reinforcements with in the pond to give them more protection.

Here my Grandson helps me illustrate the size and shape of a Beaver while is is in the water. Notice the gigantic rear feet used to propel the Beaver silently through the world that it creates and maintains. Beavers have large brains for an animal of their size. Notice how little of the animal is exposed at the surface.

Here you can see the "hands" that do the work. They do not have opposable thumbs but they still accomplish what the set out to do. The broad flat tail is easy to see here, beavers use the tail to propel them through the water as well as a defensive weapon. The tail is used to slap the water as the beaver escapes from possible danger this also serves to alert other beavers of possible danger. This "Water Chipmunk" seems to be connecting with my "Chipmunk" at a level beyond what you would expect .

I have had the wildlife camera on site for a few weeks now. Every other night this Raccoon walks right over the Beaver's lodge as it makes its round through it's territory.

The Raccoon has competition for it's territory. An Opossum walks the same path and direction as the Raccoon right over the top of the beaver's lodge. Neither are competition for the beaver's food supply but I do not know how the beaver feel about it. There have been several time when the camera has taken pictures that show the shine of an eye or no animal at all. Theses are possibly smaller fast moving animals that trigger the motion detector but the camera does not fire quick enough to catch them. Another possibility is that since the camera needs to "see" movement and body heat the beavers may be walking through the detectors eye unseen because they are wet and cold on their surface.

Beavers do what beavers do. Just like MAN they make their own habitat by altering the natural world to meet their needs. By slowing the flow of a water course they create aquatic worlds that afford them safety from predators and safe passage to and from food sources. In looking out for themselves they create a world that other animals thrive in. In my search for the beaver in my last blog I cover some ground and uncovered a sub ecosystem within the ecosystem of the creek. Over the years of watching the creek I am sure that there have been periods of time when they were not here. Their populations are cyclic with many factors molding their fate. Where they go and why they leave and why they come back I will never know, I just want to get as much time with them as I can right now.

After three weeks of waiting I have one picture of the Beaver on the wildlife camera. The camera is still out there. I check it every five or six days to minimize my impact on the area. As the seasons change I hope to have more to share with you.

It is 2:43 AM, do you know where your Beaver is?

Dam it damn it!

2010-02-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

It started out so simple. It appeared to just be a tree that had fallen in the water but I knew when I saw it I was in trouble, deep trouble. I took this picture then I moved in to see what my chances would be.

I had seen signs of beaver activity over the past few years at the creek but nothing you could point at and say “ there was a beaver here last night”, today was different, there had been a beaver here last night. As I looked around there was beaver sign all over the area.

Here is a case of some heavy duty gnawing on a dead tree. There is no food value in this kind of wood but Beavers need to gnaw to keep wearing their massive teeth down.

Some of the trees that the beavers are gnawing at deify logic but no one ever said they were logical.

Beaver Abstract

This sapling was an evening meal in it's self.

I decided to set up my wildlife camera at what looked like the best location and hope for a picture. My selected target tree was in a risky area, near a trail with dog walkers, fishermen and skim boarders. I made up a cable so I could padlock the camera and tripod to a tree and leave it there for a few nights. Here you can see it in the top right hand corner of the photo. Notice the Beaver had already chewed this tree down twice and was working on the third. The weight of the tree was being supported by a very large tree blocking it's path to the water. I am sure the Beaver could never see this in the dark while it was gnawing on the tree and as far as it knew it was a new tree each time it started to chew on it. The height of the chewed area gives you a really good idea of the size of the beaver.

An animal of some kind tripped the motion sensor on the remote camera around sunrise for three days in a row but no beaver were photographed making the final chew through. I had to rethink this plan. I wanted a beaver picture and there was no telling when or if ever the beaver was going to come back to this tree. I had to have a beaver picture. I was going to get a beaver picture.

This tree is doomed. The Beaver while deciding how to chew it down took to snaking on the inner bark lining. In the process it girdled the tree cutting off it's food supply and the tree will die. The Beaver may come back at some time in the future, finish cutting the tree down and use the wood for it's pond or leave it standing. As the tree dies it will be used by other animals for nesting holes and food as insects bore in to it.

Twig snacks

Another sapling down

I thought this was a great example of changing times. Beaver come and Beaver go. Here you see where a beaver years ago nibbled at the lower sapling and recently a new beaver came by and tasted the upper. I wonder if it tasted bad and that is why they both stopped where they did?

One afternoon about three weeks after this beaver issue started I had an hour I could steal away on a rare warm sunny early February day. If you follow my Blog you will recall it has been a rather warm month and winter in the “Puget Trough”. I thought I would try walking upstream on the side of the creek that does not have a “trail”, yet. I did find that there is an old overgrown path that parallels the creek. It is littered with fallen trees, trash, beer cans, booze bottles, car tires, washing machines and shot up car bodies.... but it also show sings of being an active game trail. Surprisingly I found signs of beaver activity about a hundred yards from and over seventy-five feet above the creek. I stood above the creek and “glasses” the water course below with the binos. Instantly I saw wood chips at the bases of trees and small beaver dam diverting water to create a backwater pool about thirty feet wide and a hundred yards long.

The dam. Water is moving from the top of the photo to the right. The slowed and diverted water is flowing back to the left. I used Goggle Earth to look at the location and saw that in years past the outline of the beaver's pond was clearly defined but there was no water in it. This again would explain what looks like periods of time when the beavers are not active in the area for one reason or another.

I moved upstream and clear as day in plain sight there it was. Wrapped around the roots of a downed tree at the waters edge was a mud and stick beaver lodge.

In less than ten minutes on this “trail” I had found the beaver's dam and lodge, this was too good to be true. I sat for a few minutes to let the sounds of the forest settle and blend in. I would like to say off in a the distance a Loon called out or a majestic Elk bugled from a mist covered grove of trees but it did not happen. The trail and the beaver lodge are at the bottom of a steep embankment with a major road crowning the top. Large trucks with their Jake Brakes roaring, speeding crotch rockets and blasting stereos break up the constant whine of care tires above the babbling waters of the beaver dam. Kinda sucks and takes the romance out of it but you have to take what you get. Rare moments of silence allow the sounds of the Kinglets, Juncos, Crows and Ravens to take their right full place in the unexpected beauty of this place.

As I sat there an immature Bald Eagle flew up the creek drainage, as I tracked it I caught movement below near the lodge. Two Female Hooded Mergansers and a pair of Wood Ducks were on the beaver pond and straining to see if I was still there, they have seen and heard me walking up to the edge and took to cover. The two Hoodies flew off and the two Woodies snuck off.

I worked my way slowly down the embankment through the dried leaf litter and branches as quietly as I could. I was in the Sargent in the U.S. Infantry in my younger years. I have observed many types of game in many environments as well as forty plus years of birding No animal in the world makes the noises a man makes when it walks. All animals know the sound and wild animals react instinctively. I takes a while for things to go back to their natural rhythm after a man passes through.

I stood by the beaver's lodge silently looking for tracks in the mud at the water edge or signs of beaver movement around the plants near what I thought was the lodge’s entrance. As I stood there I heard a muffled comical mumbling sound coming from the lodge, there were one or more beavers in it. I was dumbfounded and quietly started to move away and downstream along the edge of the pond.

I got about twenty yards and I looked back to the lodge. I saw stream of bubbles rising to the surface of the calm pond.

The bubbles reminded me of a SCUBA Diver. The bubbles were coming from the air being squeezed from the beaver's fur since it was dry when it was in the lodge.

The Beaver passed within feet of where I was sitting but since I was low to the ground the Beaver could not see my silhouette against the sky and did not know of or react to my presence.

About five feet in front of the rising bubbles columns there was a bulge in the surface of the water with brown shape torpedoing ahead of me down the center line of the pond.

I was shocked to see this and almost forgot to take the picture!

And it kept going.
When the pool opened up the shape disappeared into the depths. I quickly found and jumped to a concealed spot where I could watch the pool and wait to the beaver to surface for air. I did not know how long this would take or where it would take place. It took for ever! My ears rang, my eyes strained and the heart began to race. I stopped breathing at one point to try to hear better, it really does not work all it could hear clearly was the blood squeaking in arteries in my head.

Just as I thought I was sure I had lost the beaver to some unseen escape route I moved to get my butt out of the wet leaf litter, these are always the choices you regret when watching wildlife. One more quick gaze around may have prevented the following.

The water behind me exploded as the beaver slapped it’s tail as it blasted off to the deeper water again. The beaver had been with feet of me unseen behind a large branch. I took the moment to jump up to find a new spot with a better field of fire while the beaver was distracted and disoriented below the surface. I learned that in sniper training while in the Infantry. (I wasn’t really thinking about beavers when I was doing all that army shit but some of it comes in handy when watching animals. Duck and cover...duck and cover.)

I waited knowing I had him/her this time. My cover had been blown. It was him/her or me. One on one. Predator and prey. I had found the sense to set and check the lighting for the camera during all of this. The battery had a full charge the chip was clean. Set to a program that would allow 3.2 frames per second and the focal point was dead center in the lens.This was it, the test, the hunt. To see the beaver was not enough, that would have been a triumph in it self but in all honesty if I could not get the picture to share with you my reader what would the whole point have been? I could just waste your time with stories of glory. Without a picture why bother wasting your time. It's not about me, it's about the animals I want you to experience.

Silently, the beaver's head surface. It surfaced looking directly away from me, the camera came up to my eye and the focus squared up and in one fluid motion I squeezed off the following set of pictures.

The beaver never saw me but it heard the camera's internal doings and was gone.

To be continued.....................I am not done yet.

The small pieces

2010-02-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

“To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”

Aldo Leopold

A few weeks ago I was watching and waiting for a Bald Eagle to lift off it’s perch and swoop down on an unsuspecting fish for a quick meal. Out over the edge of the water I notice a swarm of insects that were back lit by the morning sun. Our winter had one real cold spell in December then turned very mild. So mild that the Winter Olympics in Vancouver British Columbia just 150 miles north of here does not have enough snow to go around. Snow is being trucked in for the competitions.

The eagle did go for the fish. As I was walking out of my blind I notice a Ruby Crowned Kinglet was feeding in the branches. Then it dawned on me, what is the difference? It is “relatively easy’ to see an Eagle pick off a fish but few see the awesome power and ruthlessness of a Ruby Crowned Kinglet. The Kinglet just lives in a smaller scale then the Eagle.

It is now early February and the temperatures are hovering in the mid fifties each day. Leaves are beginning to emerge a full month sooner then they did two years ago. As the trees warm their saps begin to flow and the whole energy from the sun cycle starts anew. With the stirring of the tree’s sap the migrations start. Birds eat a variety of food. The seasons offer up what is available and those birds that do not capitalize on the bounty presented perish.

Buds opening on the tree in the yard

Fungus growing on the twigs that did not survive the winter.

Close up of the sap sucking insects. If you think about it if there are ten of these bugs for every foot of branch and twig per tree that adds up pretty quick. Then think about how many trees in a given area and suddenly you have a bio mass of insects that adds up to tons of food while remaining unseen by us.

Close up of a larger flying insect. These insects hunker down and hug the branches. This is where they spend the winter hiding in the open waiting for the temperatures to rise enough to revive from their torpor and go out to feed or breed. Many never get a chance, any one of the birds you are about to meet glean over the branches with sharp eye sight and fast reflexes eating everything in their path. If they did not we would be over run by hundreds of tons of insects.

Mystery bark carving. Something is going on here, an animal has a plan and you can see it has worked before. Notice the healed scars to the left and above the fresh rectangles.We will now take a quick look at the usual suspects to find our "vandal".

Ruby Crowned Kinglet Male.
Here in the Northwest these birds visit during the Winter searching many different kinds of plants looking for tiny insects. As the weather warms the Males begin to practice their complex songs. In my experience once they start to sing they will be gone within a week or so not to be seen until next Winter. Large numbers will migrate through in a short period of time and getting in a position to photograph them is difficult. They are always on the move and very wary.

Golden Crowned Kinglet.
A year round resident of the Northwest in Coniferous forests. They are seldom seen due to their size and upper canopy haunts.

Male Common Yellow Throat.
A migratory bird in the Northwest their arrival is dependent on insect populations being active to survive.

Male Yellow Warbler.
His needs are similar to those of the Yellow Throat and does not stick around once the insects go dormant.

Bewick’s Wren.
This hardy and active little bird is a year round resident. It is constantly on the search for insects in all types of weather. The Males spring song is so varied and vibrant I have been fooled many times thinking I have found a new species. Intense searching turns up this tiny Wren. It can be disappointing to discover that it is "just" a Bewick's but it is a comforting pleasure to know that they are in the yard.

Female Orange Crowned Warbler.
Secretive and shy this Summer visitor searches the dense thickets and branches for tiny insects, when her young hatch and it takes all she has to keep up with their demands.

Male Anna’s Hummingbird.
Urban plantings have allowed this species to expand it's range far North of it's historical haunts. In the past twenty years or so it has even begun to Winter over as far North as the Canadian border. When I first heard of January reports of them in Seattle back in the Eighties I thought they were just mistaken. My resident Anna's Hummingbirds not only winter over but actively fight over the fountain in my yard when all local water sources are frozen over. During the periods of below freezing weather there is no nectar or sap to feed on so these tiny birds turn to an all insect diet. When there are no insects to be found they go into a state of torpor or semi hibernation. It is a sleep that some do not wake up from, it is a gamble with high stakes when you do not migrate. This behavior has had some strange results with reports of Female Anna's actually nesting in the Winter months within the city limits of Seattle.

Rufous Hummingbird.
These beautiful little birds migrate from Southern California up to Southern Alaska and back each year. They need fuel for this long migration. Nectar, tree sap and insects are all critical to the ability of these birds to start their journeys. If they travel ahead of their food source or suitable weather they either have to turn back or settle in and go into a torpor until the weather warms. The males move North first and are very active, the females follow but are much more subdued in their travels.

Pine Siskin.
A year round resident they are usually thought of as seed eater which they are. When seeds are hard to find tiny insects fill the needs to survive the cold winter weather. They cover large areas and there are years when I do not see them for months at a time if at all.

Bushtit

These tiny drab birds are year round residents in my yard. In the winter they flock together in large groups gleaning over the trees in a manner matching that of a military maneuver. Nothing escapes their sharp eyesight. The Males have black eyes and the Females have yellow eyes. In the spring the large flocks break up into nesting pairs that weave sock shaped nests hidden in the thickets

Chestnut Backed Chickadee
A year round resident which depends heavily on insects in coniferous trees. Here you can see the intense focus while looking of food among the needles.

Black Capped Chickadee

More common then the Chestnut Backed Chickadee around my yard but just as dependent on insects. These spent Sunflowers offer a few missed seeds as well as spider and insects.

Cedar Waxwing
In the spring the Waxwings move in to the higher branches of the Douglas Firs in the area and build nests. They are easy to see when they fly out from their perch to intercept a flying insect then return. This hunting technique for catching flying insects is called "hawking". A number of bird use this method.

Tree Swallow
A sure sign of spring is when the Swallows return. They require flying insects and do not forage like any of the birds I have talked about so far.

Barn Swallow
Soon after the Tree Swallows are seen the Barn Swallows appear. They too take food on the wing and do not forage, Though I have seen one walk to pick up an injured insect that fell of the front bumper of a car. This particular Male Barn Swallow has unusual tail additions. I had posted it on my Flickr page and asked if anyone else had seen a bird like this. I have received over seven hundred and fifty views and not one response to date.

Northern Rough Winged Swallow
Here is another Swallow that many non birders easily overlook. Neither the Male or Female are overly colorful so they just blend into the back ground and are thought to be juveniles of other species. Like the other Swallows they too take insects on the wing.

Female Downy Woodpecker
I think everyone can identify with this iconic little woodpecker. Shy and secretive Downy's find insects under the bark of damaged and dead wood. The woodpecker here is taking advantage of damage to the tree not caused by a bird.

You never know who your friends are. This Black Tailed Buck used the tree to scrape the velvet off of it's antlers when the blood supply stopped flowing to the soft tissues and the calcium began to harden. The damage to the tree is not a concern of the deer but a benefit to the woodpecker

Now back to the source of damage to our first tree.

Red Breasted Sap Sucker

This Sapsucker takes a different and more direct approach to feeding on insects. They shave away the outer layer of bark to allow the sap to pool in the wells they create. Later they return to feed on the sap and insects that have also come to feed on the sap. Many other birds have learned to take advantage to the industrious Sapsucker. It is believed the Anna's Hummingbird numbers and survival chances are much greater in areas where Sapsuckers are abundant.

From the sunlight creating the sugars in the tree sap to the insects to the tiny foraging birds to the birds and animals that feed on them. The small cog turns the bigger cog slowly then the biggest cog moves infinitesimally. The cogs and wheels move at their own speeds, infinite in scale both large and small, up and down. Which can you see, global warming, Chickadees feeding or tree sap rising?

I think Mr. Leopold could comprehend all of the cogs and wanted us to just understand that they existed .

I do not think we ever were smart or responsible enough to "tinker" any part and we surly have not by this point in history we have demonstrated "intelligence". We would be hard pressed to show "precaution".

Hell, we have now even shown that we have adult supervision.

On another note,

Happy Lunar New Year!
Year of the Tiger
Happy Valentines Day

Who's the daddy?

2010-01-31T19:57:00.000-08:00

Millions of years ago the Earth's land mass were arranged differently. A group of birds formed in to what would become known as the duck species of today. In that nebulous bird soup a smaller group forged it's own identity, we know them today as Wigeons.

In the time since then the Earth's slow but sure tectonic plate action separated the initial core group into isolated groups. Today two species of Wigeon are found in the Northern hemisphere divided between the Eurasia and North America land masses. This is just a personal observation but it took a true lack of imagination with a over ridding zeal for accuracy to name them the Eurasian Wigeon and American Wigeon respectively.

American Wigeon Drake

Another fine example of an American Wigeon

American Wigeon Drake and Hen

The polar ice cap during the past ice ages as well as the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans formed the large physical barriers the allowed all the two species to evolve into what we see today. Remember the females chose the males that impress them the best, the tastes in the old world went to the red and the new world went to the green.

Two years ago while walking in Titlow Park in Tacoma, Washington I came across a Male Eurasian Wigeon in a flock of American Wigeons. He stood out with his beautiful red head and silvery body feathers. At the time I took some photos and did not think about it much. I had seen just three Male Eurasian Wigeons before in the Puget Sound area. I was just elated to have been able to photograph one. They are not very common and the numbers vary each year.

Eurasian Wigeon Drake at Titlow Park

Here both the American and Eurasian Wigeon on the wing. Notice a strong metallic green on the wing of the Eurasian Drake

A few days ago I was near Titlow Park again and the sun broke out from behind the thick cloud cover. I took a quick left and headed to Titlow to see if there was anything new going on there. I was kinda surprised to find a flock of American Wigeons exactly where I had seen them two years ago. Even though I was surprised to find the flock I was not too surprised to find the Male Eurasian Wigeon still with the flock.

In the spring of each year millions of both species migrate North and mingle in Alaska. When the time comes to head south there is some confusion and inevitably birds from both species get caught up with the wrong group and end up migrating South along the respectively wrong side of the Pacific Ocean. This also happens to the birds that live in the Atlantic Ocean Basin. While the Males of each species are easy to tell apart the female are all but impossible. These birds that have gone the wrong way have no choice but to stay with the birds that look similar to the ones they are used to. When they migrate North again the following year they may or may not find their own kind.

Some of these "lost" birds settle in with their new flocks and take mates. The calls and breeding behaviors do differ but not so greatly that the birds to not find each other attractive. Being distinct species their mixed offspring are hybrids and take on the characteristics of both. Since there is variation on how the genes split the outward expression of the genes creates a variety of beautiful and unique birds. As to if these offspring can successfully breed themselves, I do not know, I would assume that they could due to the species not differing greatly.

During my visit I thought I have found a second Male Eurasian Wigeon. As these two male Wigeons maneuvered closer to each other I notice on of the red headed Drakes differed from the other. After a few minutes I realized the second Drake I had found was one of these Hybrids.

American X Eurasian Wigeon Drake on the left with an American Wigeon Hen. It is easy to see the characteristics of both of the species in the Male. He clearly has Eurasian body feathers and a head that is red but patterned like the American with green highlights.

Our hybrid in the center flanked by two American Wigeon Drakes

This photograph sums up my whole article in it's self. The duck in the foreground is an American Wigeon Drake, the second is an Eurasian Wigeon Drake, the third is an American X Eurasian Wigeon Drake and an American Wigeon Hen in the back ground.

Since it has been two years since my first sighting of the Eurasian Wigeon Drake in this flock I do not think it is too much of a leap to conclude that the hybrid duck may be his offspring. OR...There may be a pure breed Female Eurasian Wigeon in the flock that mated with an American Wigeon.

Either way, I am sure that some where else in this flock there might be one or more female hybrids also. Due to the gray and red color morphs common to the females as well as the similarities of the females in both species normally, I doubt I would be able to find one that I could clearly identify, photograph and share with you. They are active birds and while I can get close enough for decent pictures, none of them would cooperate long enough to take family portraits.

As I have pointed out before, I am an amateur naturalist who makes causal observations on what I see in my limited world.

I could be wrong. I could be right. DNA testing may provide the final answer. I am sure none of the ducks are going to fess up to it. But then again none of them are going on the Maury Povich Show to figure out who is the babies daddy. They just make pretty babies.

When is a duck not?

2010-01-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I took the dogs to Sequalitchew Lake on Fort Lewis. It is a small lake that does not allow gas motors. Over the past twenty years I have seen a wide variety of wildlife on and around the lake. During the winter storms it offers a safe fresh water refuge just two miles inland from the Solo Point area I have written about recently.

The past few weeks here have been one set of warm storms after another and it will continue for at least ten more going by the weather reports. I wanted to see what was on the lake and hunting over head. Bald Eagles frequent the Trout and Bass filled shallows.

The dogs burned off their energy west of the lake allowing me to slowly drive the gravel road on the south side of the lake. Nothing, nothing, nothing and then suddenly around the next little clearing, nothing. I did see a new beaver lodge which made me mentally review how long it had been since I had been out there. My past few visits found military exercises in this part of the post and the roads closed. With limited access I just stopped going out there about three years ago.

As I came upon the last pull out along the lake I spotted a flock of Canvas-backed ducks on the far bank. I pulled in and let the dogs out for a new sniff. I looked at the ducks for a few seconds and whistled for the dogs and put them back in the car.

What a beautiful sight. Calm protected waters with food and companionship. Let's imagine we are a duck looking for a place to rest. We'll start with a quick fly by to check out the approach and landing paths. When I say "quick" I mean flying by thirty to fifty miles per hour. A lose orbit puts us on track to land just in front of those Canvasbacks.

With the landing zone coming up fast it is easy to see the flock of Canvasbacks are a mix of males and females, off to the left a small group of Mallards have separated themselves. The Canvasbacks are divers the feed in deeper water while the Mallards are dabblers and feed from the surface in shallow water.Once we land we can see who is friendlier and hang out with them.

WRONG! ABORT.! GO RIGHT...LEFT....GO GO GO GO!

(If you have not seen the problem by now it is unlikely you would last long as a duck.)

At the base of the tree is a hoop blind with a duck hunter looking back at me with binoculars. If we had been ducks rocketing in he would have been tucked under the netting waiting until we were in range.

A lack of movement when I looked at the Canvasbacks made me pulled the dogs back to the car. I did not see the hunter until I looked at the pictures. I am a birder, I have no bitch with the hunter so we cleared out so he can have his turn.

I get them the rest of the year. I think I get the better deal. My season is longer, more inclusive, no bag limit and I can shoot my quarry time after time.

Then go back again tomorrow.

Oh, when it is a decoy.

...then a whale swam by.

2010-01-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

December 18, 2009

My grandson and I went out bird watching after a major bout of holiday cookie dough preparation for a cookie making party later in the week. He was pretty pumped up on the ingested samples and needed to be set free in the fresh air. I loaded him and the dogs up for a trip to the beach. Of course any time I leave the house with him is a reason to pass by the Eagle nest on the creek. As we approached the creek I could see a birding friend was already there photographing the roosting Great Blue Herons. The Herons have selected the Douglas Firs on the Western bank of the creek to soak up the morning rays. They are directly below the active Eagle nest. We talked and caught up on our recent birding adventures. The topic turned to Loons. I told him that I had recently seen loons at Solo Point. He pondered this for a moment and we were off to Solo Point.

We pulled up to the waters edge and my car quickly emptied of dogs and grandson. They know the drill. A free run on the beach. My friend and I began to scan the distant Sea Lions with our cameras. As I looked for Loon silhouettes a rush of air pierced the waters surface just yards off shore leaving a column of mist over the back of a whale

A whale was surfacing for air as it passed. I was stunned. I have seen so few whales I stood there for a few moments forgetting that I had a camera in hand.

And then it was gone.

I called my grandson back over to where we were standing and told him to watch for the whale to come up again. We had no clue as to how far it would go before coming back up. It's direction and speed seemed to be constant for the five breathes it had taken during our first sighting. A few moments later it came up about one hundred yards further along it's course. Luckily it was still very close.

At the time I saw the whale I had no clue as to what kind it was. After looking at the photos and on line resources my wife and I concluded it was a Gray Whale. My best guess as to it's size....twenty-five to thirty feet long. It was moving about walking speed, rather a slow and mellow pace.

The near land mass in the back ground is the Southern tip of Ketron Island and the far is McNeil Island. As the whale entered the channel between Ketron Island and Solo Point the Sea Lions further out on the gravel barge buoy began to bark wildly.

As the whale slipped under the surface for the last time a Sea Lion surface right on it's tail. The Sea Lion snorted when it saw us on the shore, then followed the whale for another hundred yards then turned toward the buoy where the flotilla was still barking.

There were no Loons there that day but it was great! I called it in to a State Whale Hotline and reported the location and time. I received an e-mail the next day telling me that this whale hade been seen in the area for the week prior. I have been checking their web site and see that a young Gray Whale is still orbiting the lower reaches and islands of the area.

Gray Whales give birth to their young in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico then migrate to Alaskan waters to feed during the Summer. In the Fall as they migrate South back to Mexico some of the offspring from the previous year that have been driven off by their mothers take the inside passage between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland. This path is dangerous for the inexperienced juveniles. The narrow waters and islands of the Southern reaches of the Salish Sea do not lead back to the open ocean. The urge to travel south takes the young whales up to a hundred miles inland. They will not eat until next summer when they go back to Alaska so food is not a problem. They can however waste too much energy finding their way back to the ocean and decrease their odds of surviving their first year along. Not all of them find their way back out.

All we can do is wish them the best and a safe trip.

Today

2010-01-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

"You can't always get what you want...."

2009-12-15T19:19:00.000-08:00

You Can't Always Get What You Want

If you have not figured it out by now, I spend a lot of time watching Bald Eagles. The pair that nest on the creek near by are seldom "up close". That along with the weather I can see them far more often then I can "observe" them.

Last January the Salmon run was in full swing. Plenty of salmon had slipped past the gauntlet of nets across the mouth of the creek. The Eagles had caught so many of them by this point the shoreline was spotted with gulls and ducks eating the leftovers from the days before.

I never saw the Eagle coming (neither did the salmon) but I sure did hear it hit.

The water in front of me exploded as an eagle that had silently made it's decision on which fish looked best, left it's perch high above and skillfully made it's approach on it's unsuspecting prey. The glide and snatch did not happen quite as the eagle had planned. The fish was a little bigger then it had appeared from that high perch. The talons sunk deep in to the head of the salmon and as the eagle followed through the salmon did not come out of the water and the eagle went in.

I brought the camera up to my eye as the eagle jumped clear of the water. The auto focus took forever to decide what it was going to do, by then the eagle had gotten this far...

(click on each photo to enlarge)

The salmon was thrashing violently and the eagle was flapping it's wings wildly trying to keep it's balance as well as it's grip on the fish's head.

The struggle up to this point has only been two or three seconds since leaving the water and it looks as if the eagle thinks it can take a breather. The fish was losing momentum and a calm fell over the two of them.

The commotion had already begun to attract the scavengers. Even with all of the partially eaten fish along the water's edge everyone would like fresh fish if they can get it.

The moment of stillness was broken by the fish. It began a series of even more violet and directed thrashes that incrementally drug the eagle down the slippery slope to the water.

The eagle saw the water coming and fought the fish to a second standstill.

One last burst of energy on the fish's part and a reality check for the eagle and it was over. The eagle stood there. It was very quite, the gulls that had begun to swarm noisily melted away silently.

After a brief rest the wet and tired eagle walked in to the water and stood there for a few seconds scanning all around as well as it's own feet. Then with out a sound it took off and flew back to it's high perch to recover.

I made my way back to the car and lit it up. The radio came on.

I am sure we can all agree the eagle never heard of the Rolling Stones but how poetic is that?

Where the Lions roam.

2009-11-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

I stopped off at Solo Point on Fort Lewis last week. It was a calm, cool and overcast mid morning. I was there alone. It was one of those rare calms where you could clearly hear the engine of the ferry as it left the Anderson Island slip over three miles away and headed back to Steilacoom. The sound of gravel from the barge loading facility to the South was annoying clear. For years now the sight of the gravel conveyor belt has been a scar on the illusion of isolation here.

Solo Point is an out of sight beach on the South Puget Sound. It is on Fort Lewis even though it can be accessed without having to go through security at one the of the guarded gates, it does still require a Department of Defense sticker on your vehicle to use.

It is mainly used by the Military for water borne operations and training. It is not what you would call a developed location. Three trash cans, two concrete picnic tables , a concrete boat ramp and a port-a-potty does not make for much of a tourist destination. But as they say, location is everything.

Five miles to the South is the mouth of the Nisqually River as well as the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. Offshore across wide straight is Anderson Island and to the North across a narrower straight is Ketron Island. This part of the Salish Sea reaches over six hundred feet in depth.The currents flowing around Ketron Island as well as the outpouring of the Sequalitchew Creek diversion from Fort Lewis focuses wildlife along this stretch of gravel beach.

There is always some kind of animal activity along this stretch of shoreline, this day had something special in store.

Here a barge is loaded with what the concrete industry calls Steilacoom Gravel. It is of the finest quality and is in high demand for it use where the best must be used. It was deposited at the end of the last Ice Age and is strip mined in DuPont. I can not remember which company is doing the dirty work now, it has changed hands a few times in the last fifteen years. Those who run it now are trying to change the original agreement with all of the local watchdogs so they can STRIP MINE BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE WATER TABLE.
Of course the way they put it is that they would increase the water flow in the original Sequalitchew drainage that historically supported a salmon run thus magically creating salmon habitat. So what is a few thousand gallons an hour being siphoned off of the water table and being flushed out to sea going to hurt? I never really thought of well water as a "habitat" for anything larger then bacteria.

I digress...

Common Loons winter over in these waters diving down to an artificial reef made from old car tires tied together by a Boy Scout Troop in the 1980's. The reef was placed in the shallows of a small cove and provides shelter for smaller fish that in turn attract larger fish and in turn their predators.

Loons "fly" underwater in pursuit of fish. Keeping their feathers clean and dry takes as much time and effort as they put into feeding themselves. Clear water is essential to them finding their food as they hunt for minutes at a time far below the surface where the sunlight begins to fail to penetrate.

A variety of Gulls live in the area year round. I am not good at identifying gulls and I will not be anytime soon. Many people see gulls, some watch them, I try to "read" them. Gulls are opportunistic feeders and it is pretty much every bird for it's self. There is no cooperation among them unless you call relentlessly chasing some other bird until it drops its food qualifying as cooperation. Anyway, gulls are great sign posts to help in reading what is going on behind the scenes.

The gull above saw what was going on out past the reef and took off. I tracked ahead of his line of flight and saw there was a "boil" at the surface. An unseen predator had run a school fish to the surface and every gull in the area was converging on the spot to claim its share of the spoils.

The "boil" disappeared as fast as it formed and one dark shape appeared at the surface. This is the moment your heart races. Is it an Orca, a Harbor Seal, Harbor Porpoise, or will I even have a chance to see it?

This time it is a Lion. A male California Sea Lion and he had successfully captured a Salmon. Male Sea Lions measure seven to eight feet in length and top out around one thousand pounds. It is astonishing to think that a animal larger than a side by side refrigerator weighing twice as much can hit speeds fast enough and be agile enough to catch a fifteen to twenty pound Salmon with is mouth.

Sea Lions do not use their front flippers to hold their food when the eat. That would raise the question how does one eat a twenty pound salmon while floating around in six hundred feet of water while being harassed by thirty greedy gulls?

Rather simple. Grab it by the head and give it a little snap.

Of course the down side of that is that you are left with a mouth full of cold fish head and your hard earned salmon moving away from you at a high rate of speed.
Some tastes are just acquired. There are hazards too. The gull was just looking to pick up a scrap or two and wound up with the prime cut.

Be careful what you wish for.

The Sea Lion will eat the choice parts in the good times or will eat everything during hard times cheating the gulls out of everything but the smallest of scrapes. During the salmon runs Sea Lions are known for just eating the eggs of the females and leaving everything else for the scavengers.

Here is just how close the gull came to getting wiped out!

Seeing this interaction between these animals amazes me to no end. What amazes me even more is that when a sixty pound Black Bear cub wanders into the outskirts of Seattle every news agency in three counties rush to cover the story. Camera crews, graphics, camera phone shots, maps and helicopters all bring the story to us live! Everything from the first over turned garbage can to the Krispy Cream baited trailer mounted trap to the happy ending with a drug addled bear staggering off into the woods in the foothills of the Cascades.

There are nearly one million people living on the edge of the Salish Sea, a lone bear cub eating trash can capture the attention of hundreds of thousands.

Yet when you think of eight foot long, thousand pound wild animal in the Northwest catching wild salmon with it's teeth, living just out of the sight of man,the first animal that would come to the mind for most of those living all around the country is Bigfoot.

Follow me

2009-09-16T20:10:00.000-07:00