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Edit: Sorry for the repetition of photos, but I cannot find any way to delete this post.
I was at the fishing pier Wednesday morning (9-28) and noticed a baby seal basking on the dock below the walkway to the fishing pier. The seal slipped into the water before I could get a photo, but I did see some adult salmon swim beneath me.
A few minutes later two swam past me full speed with an adult seal in hot pursuit. This may have been the mother of the baby.
I have since seen a seal inside the marina, no doubt waiting for dinner to swim past. The salmon were hatched at the nearby Willow Creek fish hatchery and were raised in the fish cage that hangs from the fishing pier every spring. They spend three (?) years at sea and return to the area to spawn. There are no free flowing streams to swim up, so they swim laps in the marina until they die. This will change if/when Willow Creek is daylighted.
I returned to the marina Friday morning (9/30) and got some shots of the baby. A member of the Seal Sitters has checked it out and said it appears to be well fed and in good health. This is a different baby than the one that hung out in the marina last winter and spring.
Edmonds fishing pier.
Mystery gull. The narrow, black bill looks like that of Bonaparte's gull, but there is no black patch behind the eye. I thought it was a mew gull, but a local birder said it was a ring-billed gull. Anyone with a better ID can post up here or send me an e-mail.
A trio of immature surf scoters flew overhead.
Lake Ballinger park in Mountlake Terrace.
Female belted kingfisher. Shot taken just before she took off.
Juvie Cooper's hawk. I'll have to look for it on future trips to the park to get some better photos.
Heron in flight at the marsh. I tweaked the photo with Picasa's autocontrast.
Winter visitors are starting to fly into town. A squadron of surf scoters has been gathering off the ferry dock. It takes them a few weeks to habituate to people and start hunting for mussels imbedded in barnacles attached to the supports of the fishing pier.
The highest peaks of the Olympic Mts.have gotten their first snow of autumn.
I prefer gray days when photographing birds at the marsh and marina. Too much distortion caused by heat heat and reflection keep me from dragging out the big lens (500L + 1.4x teleconverter) and tripod on sunny days. Thursday's (10-6) overcast inspired me to get out and take some photos.
That morning Don and Katy continued their kingfisher konflict off Sunset Ave. I only got two fair shots of them when they were closest to the street.
The rest of the shots were taken when they flew out over the water. All taken with the 5DIII + 100-400L II zoom.
One to three red-tailed hawks usually spend the winter in the vicinity of the marsh. Friday afternoon (10-7) I found one perched high in the raptor tree on the fish hatchery grounds.
Even though it was probably 100 feet off the ground, in typical red-tailed fashion it took off shortly after I arrived.
It flew to another nearby tall tree,then took off again.
Sunday afternoon (10-9) I spotted two Wilson's snipes at their usual location off the #1 viewing platform of the marsh, thus marking the opening day of snipe season. I dragged out the 500L telephoto + 1.4x teleconverter, but the photos were not good on account of the lighting and foliage.
Tuesday morning (10-11) I spotted a greater(?) yellowlegs from the #3 viewing platform of the marsh.
I returned in the afternoon and spotted it under slightly better lighting conditions from the #1 platform.
Yellowlegs make a distinctive call when they take off.
I had left the 5DIII + 500L + 1.4 teleconverter and tripod in the car. Shooting handheld with the 7DII + 100-400L II zoom gave me nearly the same focal length (680 vs 700mm) and it was much easier to track the bird in flight. I don't need the better high ISO capability of the 5DIII in bright sunlight.
Once a year I will see a northern harrier at the marsh. Harriers have never established themselves at the marsh, I believe in part due to the presence of crows. Saturday afternoon (10-16) I spotted one which circled the marsh between passes by trains and the resident Pt. Edwards bald eagle pair.
I was surprised to discover that I was photographing not one harrier, but two.
Thursday morning (10-20) I mounted the 5DIII + 500L + 1.4x teleconverter on a tripod to photograph a small group of black scoters below Sunset Ave. This is the same spot where they hung out last winter. Their cousins, the surf scoters, prefer the areas around the ferry dock and the fishing pier.
Tuesday (10-25-16) a female kingfisher (Katy?) perched on the old martin gourd holder at the marsh. Like many birds that eat prey with bones and other indigestible parts, she threw them up. I once observed an eagle doing this, but was not quick enough to get a photo. This time around I kept the camera rolling.
Look closely above the "branch" to see the item barely visible at the back of the kingfisher's mouth.
Look below the "branch" to see the item after it has been ejected.
After lightening her payload, she took off and flew over to the power line above Willow Creek, another of her favorite perches.
Good catch, Bill! Most predators that swallow prey whole do the same thing. I got several shots of a short-eared owl "huckin' up a hairball" up at Eide Road last year...
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