Tag Archives: bird

Gulls Fight the Sea Lion

Recent visits to the locks at Ballard have included sightings of some large male sea lions. The seals are a regular feature, but these big boys have not previously been so common. We were watching one of them swim a little further away from us and getting a lot of attention from a flock of gulls. The reason the sea lions are showing up is that salmon must be on the move. The concentration of the fish at the locks makes it a good hunting spot for them.

I had the camera trained on the area that the gulls were swarming around, and the sea lion came up out of the water. The flash of pink in his mouth gave away that he had a salmon which he had caught. I couldn’t see what was happening in real time but going through the images afterwards, I could make out the sequence of events. The sea lion had caught the salmon and then seemed to have bitten off the head. There were bits of fish in the water and that was attracting the gulls. Then the sea lion picked up the body of the fish and flipped it around until it went down his throat in one chunk. No head but everything else with the tail the last to disappear. Maybe the gulls got a few morsels, but the sea lion took the (sea) lion’s share.

Are Crows My New Cormorant?

Leave a reply

Cormorants have appeared many times on this blog, and they are clearly my favorite. However, I have noticed more and more that I am photographing crows as well. When the light is right, the feathers on crows really show off interesting colors – colors you never think of for a bird that is effectively black. I saw these birds down by the shore one afternoon as the sun was out and they looked so cool that I couldn’t resist a few shots.

How Nervous are the Coots?

Leave a reply

I have posted shots of coots on Juanita Bay getting attacked by bald eagles and trying to get away while staying as a pack. I was back there a while back and there was a large flock of them out on the lake and they seemed to be constantly taking off and landing. They seemed to be spooked by something and bolting but then settling down before being spooked again. Strangely, there was nothing there. I think they were spooking each other. I did get some shots but it seemed that a video was a better way to convey what was going on so the clip below gives you some idea of how they were behaving.

Crows Eating the Berries

Leave a reply

Two years in a row, I have seen this in Juanita Bay Park. There are some trees that have some red berries on them in the fall and the crows seem to love them. They can flock to the trees in large numbers sometimes. I assume the fruity casing of the berries is appealing as they do like them. However, when I get closer, the crows seem to get nervous. A little video to add to show one of the crows having a good chomp.

The Northern Flicker is Bug Hunting

Leave a reply

I have written in previous posts about how skittish the local flicker population can be. These woodpeckers are interesting looking birds but hard to get shots of because they fly off whenever they see you. Nancy and I were sitting on our deck when we saw some movement under the eaves of the house behind us. At first, we couldn’t work out what it was. Then we realized it was a flicker. It was moving around under the eaves looking for bugs

A little while later it popped out and then started to move along the rooftop poking under the joints to see what bugs might be there. A progressive examination of the roof followed and then, once it had checked out all that seemed of use there, it moved to the next house to repeat the process. Strangely, it never seemed bothered by my presence watching it. Maybe the food was just so good, it was worth the risk of me being around. Video tells the story better than stills se take a look at some footage I shot below.

Struggling With the Kingfishers

Leave a reply

There are two birds that have a good record of thwarting me when I am trying to get shots of them. The Flicker in one and some recent luck with them will appear on this blog before too long. The other is the kingfisher, and I was hoping that I might have some better luck when Nancy and I headed over to Ballard Locks one Sunday afternoon. There are quite a few kingfishers that live along the water at the locks, and they aren’t so tricky to find because their calls are loud and distinctive and are often a sign that they are flying or about to. They aren’t the stealthiest of birds.

Then again, they don’t need to be too stealthy. They are quick and agile so I imagine that they can do well when it comes to avoiding predators. I don’t know if they have many predators but good luck to them if they do since it would seem to be hard work to get one. Photographing them is hard enough! Getting good shots of them is tricky because they are small and fast. You need a long lens, but you also need to get them in the viewfinder to track them. I was making use of technology to overcome inability. The 200-800 meant I had plenty of reach and the R3 has some amazing focusing capabilities. Basically, I had no excuse because I was the weak link in the chain.

The birds were not totally cooperative, but they did give me a fair chance. Most of the time they would be flying off in the distance, but they would come close sometimes. Then they would trick me. One would take off and fly away and I would be busy track it as another flew right in front of me. I was convinced that they were taunting me. On a few occasions, though, I managed to get a tracking solution on one long enough to get focus and a few shots. The results were surprisingly pleasing. US kingfishers are not as colorful as European kingfishers and they are a bit larger, but the shape is similar, and they do make for an interesting subject. I’ll have to come back on a sunny day sometime to have another go.

Swallows Over the Grassland

Leave a reply

These shots are not going to win any awards but they are an example of trying a lot of goes to maybe get something that works. While waiting for the arrival of some interesting jets, I was standing near some grassland south of Tacoma. The sun was out and I guess that there were plenty of bugs in the air. This had attracted a lot of swallows. I love watching swallows fly because they are so fast and agile. They are amazing aviators. I never see the bugs that they are catching but clearly they know what they are up to. Of course, the targeting of the bugs means that they are always changing course. Since they are so small, a long lens is necessary but tracking a rapidly weaving small bird with a long lens is a tough call. At least modern autofocus can give you a fighting chance of getting a shot. Will it be razor sharp? Probably not but here are some of the results that weren’t total failures.

The Hummers Are a Quick Test for the New Lens

Leave a reply

One of the things that I knew would be a limitation of the RF 200-800 was the aperture which is a lot smaller than for really expensive lenses (yes, it is also expensive but not in the tens of thousands type of expensive). In low light, this is going to be an issue and it would be interesting to see how things worked out. When I got home with it, I was sitting on the deck when some hummingbirds started feeding on the flowers in one of our beds. This area is in shade a lot of the time so light was limited. I was rather pleased with the effectiveness of the focus, the sharpness at full zoom and the relatively limited noise related issues from the R3. This is a combination that looks like it could be quite useful for a wide variety of occasions. Not the solution for everything but definitely versatile.

I Guess Ospreys Love Seafair

Leave a reply

Two years ago, I went down to Lake Washington to watch Seafair. I posted then about an Osprey that was flying along the shoreline while the airshow was underway. This year I went again and, while it wasn’t as frequent a visitor as last time, we did get another osprey checking out our part of the shore once more. We were well away from the display axis so no risk of an osprey checking out a gas turbine. Such a cool looking bird to see. Soon they will be gone for the season.

Are You a Wren?

Leave a reply

Walking through Juanita Bay Park with mum, we saw and heard a small bird nearby. When we got a clear look at it, mum asked what it was. Now, I am not a bird specialist, but I do have two things on my side. One, I can get a photo of it and two, I have a very big book of North American birds at home so we can look it up afterwards. Mum thought it looked like a wren based on the shape and angle of the tail and I thought she had a good point. Sure enough, get to the book at home and it was indeed a marsh wren. Cute little thing.