Month: July 2014

I’ve already said that my favorite shots from the Malheur portion of the trip were those of the Snipes, birds I’d been pursuing in vain, for years. Another ambition I’ve had for several years now is to see the birds I see overwintering in Puget Sound where they live the rest of the year. I saw that last year when I got pictures of the grebes with babies on their backs.

This year I unexpectedly got shots of this female Common Merganser with her ducklings as I drove through the refuge.

It was actually a challenge to get these shots because the mother, naturally enough, tried to avoid me seeing her or her chicks. There was actually at least three or four more chicks, but there was no way I was going to get them all in a single frame. Most shots actually had huge blurry spots because the creek was edged with tall grass, but ‘burning’ those spot in Photoshop helped to even the tones out.

Even I could hardly avoid going “Awww” as I took these shots; these might be the cutest ducklings I have ever seen.

I’m not going to make the same claim for these American Coot chicks, which seem about as adorable as a vulture with their bald, red heads and odd-color “fur,” but they’re so homely that I do find them cute, and I don’t know of a more attentive parent,

or a more demanding child.

Unlike the Common Merganser, the American Coot seemed largely indifferent to me and my truck, so I was able to stick around and get all the shots I wanted.

Getting these shots as I was leaving for Big Bear capped off my two days at Malheur. It was a great two days.

Although driving your car is the only practical way to bird Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, getting out and walking parts of the refuge makes it possible to get shots you would otherwise miss, like this shot of what appeared to be a young Yellow Warbler [UPDATE: After an email from John and pretty well convinced that the top bird is NOT a warbler, the beak is too thick to be Warbler] and Brown-Headed Cowbird.

I must admit I was totally confused by the shot at first. [UPDATE: Perhaps confused was the correct state and I shouldn’t have tried to make a connection between the nearby Yellow Warbler and these two.] I thought that it had to be two young birds because of their behavior, particularly the fact that they stayed put rather than flying away when I shifted position to get a better shot through the heavy foliage. Most adults would fly away if they thought you were really interested in them, whereas chicks tend to freeze in place, hoping to avoid detection.

It was pretty clear that the two were different kinds of birds, though at first I thought it might be the heavy foliage that made them seem to be different colors and they were both immature Yellow Warblers and that was why this Yellow Warbler was so intent on attracting my attention away from them.

Although I saw adult Yellow Warblers both days at Malheur, none came nearly as close as this one did, trying to attract my attention. Naturally I obliged by following it away, getting the best shots I’ve managed all the while.

It wasn’t until I got home that looked more carefully at the “chicks” that I realized the bottom bird was a Brown-headed Cowbird, a bird that lays its eggs in other bird’s nests, including the nests of Yellow Warblers. Although I’d heard about the phenomena, it really didn’t register until I looked at this photo. There’s quite a trove of information on the internet about the phenomena, it turns out.

Since Cowbirds often lay their eggs in the nests of Yellow Warblers, Yellow Warblers are often able to recognize that it is not their egg and they build another nest over the top of the nest with the egg to avoid hatching it. This mother, at least, didn’t seem to distinguish the difference between her own brood and the cowbird and was raising both as her own.

Seems kind of like a reverse Ugly Duckling fairy-tale, doesn’t it?

I’m not sure whether I should admit it or not, but the highlight of my week-long trip to Malheur and Big Bear was a shot of two little birds I saw while driving on the main road in Malheur Wildlife Refuge quite early in the morning of my second day there.

At first I didn’t even think too much about them because there are a lot of birds on the road at Malheur, usually doves or sparrows. As I got closer, though, I had an “aha” moment, suddenly realizing they were Snipes, a bird I’ve been trying to photograph since I started birding several years ago, one of the last birds in my favorite birding book that I haven’t gotten a shot of.

With that, I opened the door and started to get out of the car, only to realize it was still rolling forward. After quickly stopping the car, I stood behind the open door trying to get a shot before they disappeared into the thick grass. Luckily they didn’t just dive into the grass, and I was able to get several shots, though none of them is a particularly striking shot.

This is the best shot of the group,

while this was the best shot of a single bird.

They were quite distant, though, and the pictures have been heavily cropped, but they are certainly Snipes, and, in this case, that’s what was important. I must admit I was shocked at how small these birds turned out to be; I’ve always been looking for a larger bird.

As much as I claim not to have a “life-list” of birds, there are definitely birds I want to see, both ones I have never seen before and ones I have seen before but particularly enjoy seeing. This was my “trophy” bird of this trip. It was especially a treat because I did not have any expectation of seeing snipes here, though I might in the future. My disappointment in not getting any good pictures of White-faced Ibis or Avocets at Malheur, the birds I did come to see, was outweighed by the good fortune of this sighting.