Month: July 2009

Here’s the final shots from Friday’s trip to Ocean Shores. As I said, each of them is a picture of a bird I’ve never seen before, so there was some thrill in simply seeing the birds, but the fact that the first two were so far away that there was no way I was going to get a decent picture was definitely frustrating, and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t even realize that this

was a White-Winged Scoter. No I thought it was a Black Scoter until I got the pictures on my computer and realized exactly what it was:

We did go up to try to catch a glimpse of this female King Eider in breeding colors, a rare sighting around here, so I was certainly glad that I managed to get a picture of it

but was disappointed that it wasn’t much better than it was.

This shot of a Red-Throated Loon in fading breeding colors

would have been a real thrill if it hadn’t seemed so sickly. It didn’t ever dive and seemed to totally ignore our presence, which isn’t usually a good sign.

Hopefully I’ll come up with some better pictures on my three day trip which I’m leaving on tomorrow. I’ll be birding, but mainly I want to see how well I can sleep and camp out of my car in anticipation of taking some longer birding trips in the fall.

I went with Ruth Sullivan to Ocean Shores Friday to see a rare bird, or at least rare around here, I’d never seen before. Luckily, I did manage to see it and even get a passable shot. I even got another first for the day.

My favorite shots from the day, though, had nothing to do with rare birds or firsts. This one didn’t even involve a bird,

just a beautiful shell that’s somehow avoided being sharded by nature’s forces.

My other favorites are shots of birds, but rather common birds, birds I’ve photographed numerous times before, like this Heermann’s Gull

riding the winds on the jetty, or this Killdeer that was obviously trying to lead Ruth and I away from its nest,

though my favorite shot of the day was this shot an osprey, one of a pair that flew directly over my head several times

and then landed in a telephone pole feet away from me.

I’m afraid I’m not too interested in seeing a bird through binocular or a scope if I can’t get a picture of it. I’d rather get a good shot of a robin than a mediocre shot of a female King Eider.

The hummingbirds, a personal favorite, have retuned to the yard with a vengeance due to the Crocosmia starting to bloom. They’ve been dive bombing each other much of the day, though I’m still trying to catch two in frame with little luck.

The problem is that I’ve gotten so many good shots in the last few years that I’m seldom satisfied with the shots I get the first few days when the hummingbirds seem particularly skittish. So far this one:

and this one

are my favorites, but I truly expect to get much better shots than these in the next few days