Birding at Tokeland

Yesterday was one of those warm-sunny Fall days when you’re almost ready to pack up and move to the Ocean to retire. (Once you’re home, you remember that winters on the Coast are miserably wet, with a lot of cold, driving rain, and that perhaps it’s best to drive there every chance you get and to stay in a motel overnight when really tempted.)

Though Tokeland is probably my least favorite place to photograph, I’ve certainly got the best photos there the last three times I’ve gone to the beach, making it difficult not to return there every time I go. I don’t have to do anything to get photos other than drive there, get out of the car, and stand on the dock, and wait for miraculous things to happen. And they usually do, at least photographically.

For instance, this is the first time I’ve ever managed to get a shot of a Western Grebe, and there was a flock of them just aways off shore. Unfortunately, they never came as close as I would have liked, but I’d be an ingrate to complain about shots like this:

Western Grebe

Equally exciting, though not the first time I’ve ever managed to get a shot of a Common Loon was the fact that the loons were closer than I’ve ever seen them before, and they were busy fishing, so they paid virtually no attention to me, just going about their business of catching meal after meal:

Common Loon With Fish

And what would a good day birding be without an unidentified birds like this one

Unidentified Shorebird

that was hanging out with a large flock of Marbled Godwits at Tokeland, but doesn’t look like any Marbled Godwit I’ve seen.

4 thoughts on “Birding at Tokeland”

  1. Am catching up with your posts, loren. Especially like the unidentified bird photo.

    On my trip to California, I visited Robinson and Una Jeffers’ Tor House and Hawk Tower on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Carmel. It occurs to me that they likely would have had a great appreciation for your photos.

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