Month: March 2012

So, what do you do when it rains for 20 days straight and there are no sun breaks long enough to take a walk? If you’re like me, you spend an awful lot of time browsing the internet, playing Scrabble and reading books.

If you’re a birder, you might set your camera next to the sliding door on the deck and try to get shots of birds as they visit the feeder.

Sometimes you get lucky and catch a shot of a Red-Shafted Flicker during one of those few moments when the sun comes out

.

This year, though, you’re more apt to see a Varied Thrush in the shady area below the feeder.

Which gives a chance to spend hours working with Aperture and Photoshop trying to get a shot that isn’t too grainy.

If you’re really bored and spend more time than usual looking out the window, you might see a female Varied Thrush hanging out, too.

Of course, if you open the shade on a Sunday morning and see a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk staring you in the face you grab a camera as fast as you can and spend more hours with Aperture and Photoshop trying to make a picture emerge from the shadows.

Later, when you see the juvenile Cooper’s Hawk sitting in the tree where the feeder hangs,

you think it might be time to quit filling it with seed for a while so these neighbors don’t meet in your back yard.

So what do you do when it rains twenty days and twenty nights straight? For one thing, you spend a lot of time at the YMCA lifting weights and walking the indoor track. More importantly, if you’re retired, at the first glimmer of sunshine you hit Ruston Way, capturing all the sunlight you can.

Since it’s impossible to plan a trip under such circumstances, I spend most of the time walking around the boathouse and the trail to Owens Beach, taking pictures of birds that I’ve seen many times before, wondering why these Barrow’s Goldeneye continue to bob their head even after they’ve apparently wooed a mate.

Photograph Common Goldeneyes

and wonder how you ever confused them with a Barrow’s Goldeneye or why they always occupy a different section of the beach than the Barrow’s do.

Sometimes if you’re lucky you get buzzed by a 2nd-year Bald Eagle

and wonder how the feathers can change so dramatically as they become adults.

Perhaps you just wonder who’s really the “birdbrain” when shoreline owners mount fake owls

on their buildings to scare away pesky birds.

After seeing so many Snowy Owls so close, I figured my trip to Tokeland was going to be little more than an afterthought. However, I haven’t seen the Godwits for quite a while and, creature of habit that I am, I decided the trip wouldn’t be complete without a stop at Tokeland. As it turned out, there wasn’t a single Godwit to be seen. In fact, there weren’t many birds out in the harbor at all, perhaps because of the dredging that was going on.

I hadn’t driven all that way, though, not to see anything. So, I went over by the boat docks where I spotted a small flock of Western Grebes. I took a few shots at a distance, thinking that they would certainly fly off as I walked closer. They didn’t. I thought I’d gotten close to them in New Mexico, but not nearly as close as I did this day.

I was amazed that they seem totally indifferent to me and went about catching

shrimp at a rather fast pace.

Although it was perfectly clear that they very aware of me,and at times stared right at me,

they came so close that they could’ve taken a fish or shrimp right out of my hand. In fact, they came so close that I nearly fell off the dock backing up trying to keep this one in frame.

Observing and photographing them up close was definitely the highlight of the day. I’m not sure I will ever need to take another picture of a Western Grebe. Unless, of course, I can find a pair doing a mating dance, something I’ve yet to see except on film.