Category: Port Orchard

Although I usually go to Port Orchard when I go to Theler Wetlands (because I’m a creature of habit and because I prefer the food in Port Orchard), in recent months I seldom bird the docks because about all I see in the summer are gulls and an occasional Pelagic Cormorant. That has finally changed, and often the best birding of the day is at Port Orchard.

On my most recent trip I got a nice shot of a Belted Kingfisher

that had taken possession of the crow’s nest.

Perhaps he was on the lookout for Surf Scoters, a bird I’ve been expecting to see for a while.

The number of Horned Grebes

seems to be growing, too.

Lots of male and female Hooded Mergansers, though they insisted on hiding in the shadows on this trip.

The Baird’s Goldeneye, however, seemed to enjoy the sunshine as much as Leslie and I did.

Although we had just returned from a week-long trip to California, I decided to go birding Tuesday because it was predicted to be the lone sunny day of the week and because I was afraid that the Horned Grebes would have left for their breeding ground if I didn’t get there this week.

As it turned out, it looked like they had already left when I arrived at Port Orchard. In fact, I didn’t spot a single Grebe until I had reached the end of the marina, and it was still not in full breeding colors.

I was a little disappointed, but things took a turn for the better while walking back to the car. This Grebe popped up just a little ways back, and the clouds had actually cleared enough to give the impression that the water was blue, not gray.

I’m pretty sure it is in full breeding colors, and those horns really look like horns in this shot.

I actually saw two more Horned Grebes as I continued back to the car, though I’m not entirely sure that at least one of them was the second one I had already photographed, especially since I was seeing it from a completely different angle.

My favorite shot of the day was this one, taken just as I walked up the ramp to the street.

I’m really glad I went even though we should have stayed home and cleaned up after our California trip. The last thing I really needed was more shots to process, but that seems to be a fairly common theme in my life, and I always prefer to have too many pictures rather than no pictures.

After seeing all the signs of Spring at Bloedel Reserve, I decided I would have to stop at Port Townsend and see if the Horned Grebes had started wearing their breeding plumage.

In the Winter, it’s hard to imagine why these little guys

are called Horned Grebes.

Come Spring, though, and it’s easy to see where the name comes from. I don’t think I saw a single Horned Grebe that had completed the transformation, but some, like the one on the right, are close to wearing their Spring outfit.

Luckily, I find the process of transformation nearly as interesting as the end product, so I was excited every time I sighted a bird that was undergoing the process.

It’s almost as magical as Spring itself, and nearly as short-lived.

As soon as all the grebes look like this, they will magically disappear,

only to reappear in Late Fall in their drab winter colors

.

I keep checking Port Orchard’s marina to see if the Horned Grebes have started turning into their breeding colors, but so far all I’ve managed to do is repeat shots I’ve already shown many times. That’s okay, though, because the photographer in me still loves close-up like this with interesting reflections.

The birder in me, though, gets more excited when I spot Western Grebes,

even though the shots never come close to the quality that I’ll get later when I go to Bear River and Malheur and I usually discard the shots as soon as I post them here. Still, when I do spot them they are usually too far out to get even this good of a picture.

The birder in me, though, was even more thrilled to see this Red-Necked Grebe surface near a Western Grebe.

Once I spotted the Red-Necked Grebe I lost interest in the Western Grebes and managed to get a little better shot even though it never came very close while I was in the marina.

Even though I knew the shot wasn’t going to be very good, the birder in me took control, and I knew that this was the shot of the day, even if the photographer in me doesn’t agree.