Reifel Bird Sanctuary
My first visit to Reifel since the snow went away! One of the first things to welcome us was two female Anna’s dogfighting around one of the feeders. Females are less aggressive than males, but they can still throw down — especially if it’s nesting season, as it already would be for these gals. At one point a male showed up, but since this is not a romcom it all just turned into a threeway fight with no resolution.
A tiny and adorable Saw-whet Owl, unwisely trying to sleep too near the trail. I’ve never seen their huge, beautiful yellow eyes in person before!
And this hungry Fox Sparrow. I’m going to miss these guys!
Just outside one of the blinds, we looked up and saw half a dozen Bald Eagles, of mixed ages, circling. Just… circling. Don’t know what’s going on there, but on social media I heard of similar things going on elsewhere on the same day so… maybe it’s a seasonal thing?
Yes daddy flex those sexy red shoulders and make like the loudest sports whistle, that’s so hot.
Even though they’re huge chatterboxes, this is only the second time I’ve captured these guys actually vocalising!
Not my first extreme closeup of these guys, but probably my extremest and highest-res so far. So many cool details! Gawd these birds are so weird and fascinating.
The one remaining crane child. I’d noticed in my last two visits that it was always two adults and one baby. And since crane families stay pretty close for at least one year and sometimes up to two, it was exceedingly unlikely the second baby just struck off on its own.
The volunteer I spoke with confirmed that the other colt had been missing for about three weeks. They’d gone searching but couldn’t find any evidence of a carcass. So that’s sad news. He speculated as to what could take out a pretty-much-fully-grown Sandhill Crane, but I don’t remember that part of the conversation.
Everett Crowley Park, March 1
Not a lot to report on this brand-new (to me) spot. It’s nice enough, but too dog-friendly for my taste. Still I managed to snap some pics of a couple robins, including a very pretty leucistic guy.
Piper Spit, March 1
We saw the usual suspects, which I’ll never complain about, but again I was feeling a bit uninspired and disconnected form the constant quackery. Too many ducks photobombing other ducks, same with gulls, messing with my compositions… Maybe I just need to relax and let the imperfections roll off me like some kind of duck-based simile, but I have a hard time letting that go.
That said, here’s a cute Lesser Scaup hen making herself all pretty. I love the glimpse of her lamellae and her big pink tongue.
