Category: Port Orchard

Port Orchard marina continues to be my favorite local area to bird, though, I wouldn’t drive that far to bird without walking Theler Wetlands. However, for some reason it seems to be sunnier there than it is at Theler and I can often get much closer to the birds than I can at Theler.

Sometimes the birds also seem more photogenic, like this male Hooded Merganser I spotted even before I walked down the ramp into the marina.

It’s also one of the few places I have ever managed to get close to a male Red-Breasted Merganser.

In fact, this one surfaced just in front of me.

With the bright sunshine and my lens set at 1/1600 of a second, I was hoping to get a good shot of it when it took off, but it wasn’t to be. Instead of taking directly off, it dove and swam under the dock before emerging on the other side and taking off.

By the time I relocated it, it was a considerable distance away, and, as it turns out, 1600 of a second wasn’t a fast enough shutter speed to completely freeze the image.

It’s probably the best shot I’ve gotten this year, though, and incrementally better shots are all the inspiration I need to keep going back to get “that shot.” Besides, before long the Horned Grebes should be getting breeding colors and that inspires me no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

I spent the second half of Monday at Port Orchard, though there seemed to be a few less birds in the Marina than usual, perhaps because there was another photographer wandering the area. I did manage to get close to a couple of birds, though. Surf Scoter usually paddle away before you can get close enough to get a good shot, but this one actually popped out from under the dock just as I walked by.

Of course, it was so eager to get away that there is no way I was going to get a shot of anything but its back. Still it’s hard to miss its distinguishing marks: the brightly colored beak, the “wiggle” eye that looks like it belongs on a doll, and the white patch behind the neck.

Most of the time I tried to capture shots of the Goldeneye as they took off

and skittered past me,

darting from one end of the marina to the other, only to repeat the pattern as I approached the end of the dock.

I probably spent the most time, though, capturing a shot of this little bird, fascinated because I couldn’t identify it at first. At first it kept fleeing down the boardwalk, running slowly, then flying a short distance before landing.

After I neared the end of the dock and turned around because I didn’t want to totally stress it out, it flew past me as I walked back to the marina entrance.

At one point it even seemed to chide me.

This all seemed like rather strange behavior for a shorebird, especially when I finally decided that it must be a Dunlin in non-breeding colors. I’ve photographed lots of Dunlins, but usually in breeding colors and almost invariably in large flocks on the beach, not a solitary bird walking a marina.

After Friday’s trip to Theler, I made my usual stop at Port Orchard to see if the Horned Grebes had left as I had predicted. As I entered the marina I was greeted by a large number of gulls, and this one flew over my head with a small starfish in its beak,

closely followed by another gull squawking very loudly

Not too much later I encountered another gull

having a hard time fitting a whole starfish in its mouth.

I was also surprised by a Pigeon Guillemot that also seemed to have a starfish in its beak.

Since I hadn’t managed to get very close to the Pigeon Guillemots at Westport, I thought it was nice of this one to come up right in front of me.

In the same vein, I spotted this Western Grebe a ways off shore, a bird I’d hoped to see at Malheur but hadn’t.

Although the majority of the Horned Grebes seemed to have left (or were spending the afternoon at another nearby site) there were four or five Horned Grebes in various stages of breeding plumage.