Tag Archives: Juanita bay

Grebes Scooting Over the Bay

Earlier in the year, I was up at Juanita Bay before things got too warm to make it enjoyable. We get plenty of ducks and coots on the bay but, on this occasion, there were a load of grebes on the water. The types of grebes I grew up with a larger than the ones I saw here. To be honest, I am not certain whether these were adults or juveniles because they seemed to have very small wings. Maybe that is how they are, but it could be that they weren’t fully grown. Maybe some of you know your birds well and can enlighten me.

Anyway, they would periodically get excited and start zipping around the bay. They would be flapping these small wings furiously and just skimming across the water until they found somewhere that they were happier to be. I don’t know whether this is just normal movement or that they were spooked by something but it was fascinating to watch them hurtling around.

How Many Coots Do You Need to Stay Safe?

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We went through a phase at Juanita Bay when the number of coots really rocketed. They were a popular source of food for the local eagles, but they had to work for it. The coots were gathered in large groups on the water and the eagles would do their best to get one isolated so that they could pick it off. As they got close, the flocks of coots would get startled and would start flying around to evade the eagles. Watching this action from a distance was fascinating as this large number of birds tried to move as one to protect themselves. Not a time for being independent!

Mergansers Show Up Before the Sun Does

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We have a bunch of birds that are regulars at Juanita Bay which I will still photograph but that don’t stand out. Then, when you walk along the shore and you see a flash of something different, you quickly change direction. I was walking along the shore back towards the park when a white bird came into view and I saw it was a merganser. I reversed course and managed to get some shots before it too reversed course and disappeared behind the foliage. I was able to get some further shots further across the bay later, but they weren’t as close as this initial encounter. Sadly, the sun had not come up very far. It was a sunny morning, but it was midwinter and the trees were providing plenty of shade this early in the day.

Waiting for the Eagle to Come My Way

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I was waiting on one of the boardwalks at Juanita Bay when an eagle caught something and took it to eat on the post out in the water. After it finished its food, it headed to one of the logs in the water to clean itself up in the lake water. Having watched this routine a number of times, I figured that it would finish cleaning and then fly towards the trees near where I was standing. I figured that, rather than try to get closer, I should wait where I was and have the eagle come to me.

Sure enough, the behavior was as predicted. The eagle went to log and spent a bit of time cleaning itself up after devouring the catch. The only tricky thing with this position was that there is a very cluttered background. If I was shooting with my older DSLR, I would have been using a single autofocus point which would be very effective as long as I kept it on the subject. The mirrorless cameras are much cleverer but also like to look for subjects and, if something is against a busy background, the camera might not recognize the target. This had been an issue in a similar situation before.

This time, the contrast was sufficient to allow me to track the eagle effectively. It came straight towards me as it headed to the trees to relax and digest its dinner. I managed to get a few good shots of it as it got airborne and came my way. Sadly, the conditions were rather dull and, while I got some shots, they weren’t quite as dramatic as I would have liked. Still, head on with an eagle is always good.

Finally Seeing The Mandarin Duck

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For as long as I have been going to Juanita Park, I have been hearing about the mandarin duck. We have tons of wood ducks but there is one mandarin that lives in the bay. Everyone talked about whether they had seen it. However, it was never wherever I went. Finally I broke that “duck” (apologies for the awful pun). It was hanging out in the bay in nice lighting conditions and seemed busy playing with some root. After this visit, I was back a little while later and there he was again. I guess I am trusted enough now for him to hang out!

Green Heron

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The great blue herons are a regular feature of Juanita Bay but I had seen a few local photographers had managed to get shots of a green heron. By the time I next visited the bay, I figured I might have missed out but was rather pleased when someone said the heron was in amongst the grasses. It did mean he was hard to photograph since he was well concealed. I figured this would be all I could get but there was some other creature in the grass – a rodent of some sort I think. This spooked the heron and it flew out on to the log nearby and I was able to get a clear shot. He squats down a bit when resting but, when relocating, the length of the neck was clear. That is what allows the hunting to be successful when he lunges at his prey.

Slapped Around The Head But Still Swallowed

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When watching the herons hunting in Juanita Bay, you never know exactly what they are going to catch. Something like a stickleback will be a relatively easy thing for them to swallow once they have caught it. On one occasion, though, a heron caught something a little longer. I am not good with different fish so can’t tell you what it was but it had a long body and a tail with some power. The heron had the front of the fish in its beak but the back end was still flailing around. The heron was hoping to win the battle but the fish made sure to give it some healthy whacks around the head before it finally succumbed.

Killdeer Versus The Worm

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While I was down at Juanita Bay one weekend, a killdeer was hanging out on a muddy flat near me. It was busy extracting worms from the mud to snack on. The worms were not totally onboard with this plan and they were doing their best to stay in the mud. Some times the killdeer won the struggle and sometimes the worm did!

Heron In Flight

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Much of my heron photo collection is of them hunting for their lunch as they stand at the water’s edge. However, I do occasionally get photos of them in flight. Now I like most things that fly but I do think that the heron is not the most elegant bird when it is flying. The long outstretched neck works for a swan or a goose but, for a heron, it seems rather out of balance. With the large wings, it is an efficient flyer but it doesn’t have the look of a bird that is having an easy time of it. This one was heading across Juanita Bay and over the the shore where another heron had been hanging out and, as is the way of wildlife, it was determined to drive the other bird away whether it needed to or not!

The Sheriff Buzzes Juanita Bay

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I was down in Juanita Bay with mum during her visit when the sound of a helicopter came towards us. I managed to switch a few of the settings to get things mostly write although not the exposure. However, RAW is quite forgiving these days. It was the King County Sheriff’s JetRanger that was making a tour of Juanita Bay for some reason. They were pretty low as they buzzed by and then circled around to the north side of the bay and disappeared. Not sure why they came that way – maybe they know someone there?