Category: Nisqually NWR

With rain predicted the rest of the week, I headed to Nisqually Monday after I took Skye for his morning walk, thinking that a recent Seattle Times article on the new boardwalk would mean that part of it was now open. Unfortunately, that turned out to be untrue. Apparently the boardwalk won’t be open until hunting season has ended.

It was too great of a day not to take advantage of the sunshine, though, so I stuck around. Birding wasn’t much better than Sunday’s trip, but the ice was just as beautiful here as it was at Belfair. I was particularly fond of the Hoar Frost:

I also sighted a lot of raptors, including several Bald Eagles and a pair of Peregrine falcons, but the only one a managed to get a good shot of was this female Marsh Hawk that flew right past me.

The best bird of the day was obviously this Western Meadowlark, a bird I haven’t seen since I was in Colorado, and never managed to get this good shot of even there.

I also sighted this Downy Woodpecker on my way out, a bird I haven’t seen since they closed the 5-mile trail down

It felt great getting out for a longer walk. Perhaps with the rain returning I’ll get a chance to finish the poetry book I started this weekend.

I’m in the middle of Rollo May’s My Quest for Beauty and more interested in reading than commenting at the moment. Normally I would have been out taking pictures Monday or today, but with a steady rain falling the last three days and rain and snow forecast for the rest of the week, it doesn’t look like I’m going to get a chance to get out and take pictures at least until Sunday.

So, I’m forced to fall back onto these not-so-Great Egret pictures I took last Wednesday. This was actually the closest I’ve gotten to a Great Egret in quite awhile, so I naturally snapped away again and again. Though none of the shots are as good as some shots I’ve gotten in the past in California, I’d never pass up a chance to get a shot of one, whether it’s stalking it dinner,

gulping it’s dinner,

or just flying off to a nearby snack bar.

It’s whiteness makes it a startling beautiful, but it also makes it difficult to get a really good shot without perfect lighting. More often than not the whole bird turns completely white unless you adjust the colors, which, as a result, makes it appear dingier than it actually is.

Wednesday was another of those knockout sunny fall days that grabs you by the collar and pulls you outside. I actually made two trips around Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, in the morning and then in the afternoon with one of the volunteers at the visitor’s center. Both trips were delightful, particularly since I haven’t seen too many Great Blue Herons since I stopped visiting regularly.

This heron was in a drainage ditch right next to the dike where a number of small fish had been trapped when the tide went out. He was much too busy gorging on fish to worry about hiding.

I’ve gotten a lot of GBH shots, but few where wing feathers are as beautifully detailed as this one.

But I’m also strangely fond of this blurry shot of a Great Blue Heron by the front pond, sheltered from visitors by the heavy shrubbery,

and protected from the camera by contrasting sun and shadows.

And this American Bittern was a few feet down the boardwalk, so close that it was impossible to get much more than a head shot of him with my 400mm lens.

In fact this shot is actually two different shots photomerged together.

Wednesday morning I went back to Nisqually since I haven’t been there in awhile. They’re still working on the boardwalk, and I guess they will be until October or so before it’s completed. So birding is definitely limited and there really weren’t many opportunities for photographs. All I managed to get was this shot of a Savannah Sparrow

and this Kestrel that was quite far off and still flew away once I pointed the telephoto lens at it.

Luckily, Waughop Lake was a little better. There was a considerable number of young Wood Ducks, like this juvenile male.

Unfortunately, I had my lens set on automatic so I could get shots of the birds in the shaded brush beside the trail and missed what would have been the best shot of the month, when this Osprey suddenly swooped down literally right in front of me.

Although this shot turned out okay, the best shots , when he was even closer, were too blurry to use. It was swooping away with his prey before I finally got another shot in focus.

I’ll have to admit I could get addicted to highs I felt as the Osprey slammed into the water right in front of me, photographs or no photographs.