Month: July 2018

Back to Seabeck

After we unpacked from our Malheur/Bear River/Santa Rosa trip we headed up to Seabeck, knowing full well that we had already missed the best times to see the Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons. The tide wasn’t ideal but got even worse on any of the days before we were to leave for Colorado.

If I hadn’t had such great days in previous years, I would probably have been more than happy with the shots on this visit. After all, this immature Bald Eagle was waiting for us at Big Beef Creek when we pulled up,

and I only had to wait a half hour or so before this mature Bald Eagle swooped down

but missed his catch.

Although there was a really long stretch of time with little or no action, we did manage to get some close-up shots of another immature Bald Eagle

and adult Bald Eagle at Seabeck.

This Bald Eagle was so close that I couldn’t resist cropping it into a headshot.

A Final Look at the Santa Rosa Rookery

It’s probably not unusual, but knowing absolutely nothing about a heron rookery, I was surprised at how many different ages of chicks we saw, everything from this relatively old Great Egret chick

to these two chicks that were so young that I couldn’t tell whether they were Snowy or Great Egrets.

These three chicks seemed somewhere between the above.

Even more surprising, though, was that both Night Herons

and egrets were still bringing in sticks, suggesting that the egg-laying season was going to extend further into summer. Two visits aren’t nearly long enough to understand the birds nesting behavior, but, hopefully, I will learn more when I visit again next year.