Month: June 2014

I’ve been so busy with my head up in the clouds looking for Bald Eagles flying that I’d never really bothered to look down into the waters below the dock I was standing on. Leslie, who’s definitely less fixated on birds than I am, however, did take time to look into the water and then started pointing things out and asking questions I definitely couldn’t answer.

What I could do was document what we were seeing with my camera. If you looked very hard you could see sculpins

and other small fish everywhere you looked.

Then we noticed a strange, eel-like tail sticking out of a hole in the ground, obviously making a tremendous effort to go deeper into the “cave.”

Since the cave was considerably above where the low tide would go, we wondered if what ever it was would try to go back out with the tide.

We soon discovered, though, that tide or no tide that sculpins were heading further up the shore, generally stranding themselves.

As the tide receded, we saw more and more sculpins, most of which looked either dead, or about to die.

Leslie wanted to wait for the tide to go out to see if the fish would survive, so we waited for another hour or so and discovered that some of those fish that appeared dead were actually still alive and swam back into the water when the water rose.

It was clear, though, that many of them had perished. I know a lot more about salmon than I do sculpins, so I wondered if they made the ultimate sacrifice that salmon do to reproduce.

Although the eagles, herons, crows, and gulls are infinitely more photographic than these bottom fish that we used to throw back when fishing, they are obviously vital to the well-being of the Puget Sound ecosystem. Hopefully somebody is doing a better job than I have of observing them and insuring that they keep returning in large numbers so my great grandchildren will have the opportunity to view this magnificent ecosystem like I have.

Having grown up on the Puget Sound, I find it hard not to see the species as raucous, garbage eaters, as demonstrated when some fool threw two pieces of bread in the water.

Since I’ve taken up birding and wildlife photography, I’ve realized that there is a variety of gulls and even those that seem to rely most on scavenging have their own beauty.

And, like the crows, gulls seem to be an important part of the ecology, attracted by the sculpins in the same way all the other birds are.

Though not as good of fishers as the Great Blue Herons, it was clear that they were perfectly clear that they were more than capable of catching sculpins and other small fish in the deeper waters.

I’ll have to admit that I was rooting for this gull when it was harassed by a Bald Eagle that wanted to steal its catch, even though it seemed only fair that a bird that often harasses smaller birds to drop their prey should be made to do the same thing.

Apparently all those years of harassing other birds helps to build skills because it wasn’t long before the Bald Eagle turned away in pursuit of other prey and the gull settled down to enjoy its catch.

No matter what draws you to Seabeck, if you stay long enough and observe closely enough, you can’t help but see that this is a complex environment with many actors. One of those is the omnipresent crow.

A truism in the Pacific Northwest is that where you find food, especially easy food, you will find crows. They seem omnipresent, and Seabeck is certainly no exception.

Another truism is that crows will protect their territory from all kinds of predators, trying to harass them into leaving. There were lots of signs of that at Seabeck. This immature Bald Eagle just had to fly by the dock and a crow joined him in flight, protesting loudly the whole way.

So, it was a little surprising to see this mature Bald Eagle, who didn’t seem awfully tolerant of all the uninvited guests at the banquet.

Overall, though, they seemed to get along remarkably well, and I’m not sure why, though I suspect it has something to do with the plentiful supply of food.

You might think that if crows could get along with Bald Eagles then they could get along with each other, but you would be wrong.

It must say something about human nature that even when individuals have everything they could every want they will find some reason to fight with each other.

Bald Eagles don’t just try to intimidate Great Blue Heron; they spend almost as much time trying to intimidate each other. Sometimes it seems deadly serious, like when these two juveniles tried to eat some of the fish the adult was eating, perhaps thinking the adult would be intimidated by two youngsters.

The adult was having none of it, and though I don’t think he did any real damage he drove off the juvenile eagles.

It’s impossible to tell an Eagle’s intent until after the event has unfolded, but quite often an adult that seems to be trying to intimidate another adult

will settle in next to them, and they will be perfectly content to look back and forth at each other for the next ten or fifteen minutes.

Many times, though, a particular piece of real estate seems especially desirable and several eagles will jostle each other until some decide to leave.

Of course, sometimes a Bald Eagle just wants someone else’s fish, whether it be Great Blue Heron’s or a fellow Bald Eagle’s.