Tag Archives: bird

Wilson’s Snipes Got The Twitchers Excited

I am not a bird expert so, while I can recognize a variety of different birds, there are plenty that I have absolutely no clue about. However, Juanita Bay is a popular spot with the ornithologists and I can learn a bit from them. A couple was chatting with me on one of the boardwalks about Wilson’s Snipes. They thought they could see them on one of the shoreline areas but couldn’t be sure. I bumped in to the same people on the other side of the shore and they confirmed that the snipes were there.

At first they were pointing out a couple of them. As we spent a bit more time watching, it turned out that there were loads of them. They weren’t easy to see given how well their camouflage worked but, once you had got the hang of it, finding the others got a lot easier. I don’t think this is a rare bird so this wasn’t an amazing discovery that we were making but they were still pretty excited about it so I was too.

Heron On The Hunt

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Herons are not known for being too happy about people nearby but the ones in Juanita Bay are very used to the people on the boardwalks and they don’t seem to be bothered about how close they are. I had spent a fair bit of time on one boardwalk chatting to some photographers and we had discussed the heron that was over by the next boardwalk. As we headed our separate ways, I figured I would go across to see if I could get any shots of the bird.

The light was fading fast so I was shooting at higher ISOs than I would have liked but I was pleasantly surprised that the R3 seemed to have a cleaner result than I would have expected with the 1DXII. Technology does move on of course, but I think thinks have plateaued a bit in that area so this was a nice result. The heron was quite close in and, since I only had the 500 with me, I had to chose my location carefully. The eye tracking did a pretty impressive job with the bird as long as it was not looking directly at me (or away of course).

I did got with high frame rates to try and catch strikes with the food. Unfortunately, the bird was not having a great time. I got one strike but it was not a fish but a piece of bark. Another “catch” provided to be a stick. Maybe this heron is the sharpest bird in the bay. Overall, I was pleased with the results and I was more happy about the ability to let the autofocus work across the image so I could compose how I wanted rather than based on the location of autofocus points.

Sparrow Visitors

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Imperial Hill gets loads of visitors and plenty of them eat lunch while up there. Consequently, the sparrows are keen on the place too and they get pretty confident with the people around. While I was up there, I figured I should try and get a few sparrow shots as well as other flying things. If I wanted to focus on them, they are so close and fearless that it should be easy to do.

Kestrel Patrolling The Taxiway

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One sunny day, I was hanging out at Arlington watching the flying activity. However, planes weren’t the only thing flying. I looked across at a taxiway light and saw something on top of it. A look through the long lens and a kestrel came into focus, if only briefly. Before I knew it the bird had launched into flight and headed away, not to return while I was there. I was rather pleased to have got something close to a reasonable shot of it in that short moment.

Our Pet Gull

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Our hotel room in Victoria was near to the top of the building. The window was set into the roof line. We had a flat space outside the window and it was popular with the local bird life. On several occasions, we had a gull land on the space and stand there for a while. It actually seemed interested in us rather than deterred by our presence. No guarantee that it is the same bird but we started to feel like it was visiting us on a regular basis.

Sea Eagles

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Woodland Park Zoo has a pair of Stellar Sea Eagles in an enclosure. The Sea Eagle is a big bird. This pair were pretty active as well. They were making a lot of noise and flapping around the enclosure not stopping at any one spot for long. It made for a fun time trying to get some shots of them. Shooting through the enclosure is a bit tricky but, being close enough to it allowed everything to blur out and the shots worked out pretty well. They are an intense looking creature.

Inquisitive Crow

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This crow landed on a street light near me. It caught my attention because it seemed to be fascinated by something under the light. It would lean right over the edge to try and get its head underneath – presumably because there was something edible there. It even tried flying up from the underside but that didn’t go so well. I’m not sure if it got what it wanted or just gave up.

Pileated Woodpecker or Pterodactyl?

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I was riding down along the west side of Lake Washington approaching Renton when I saw something large on a dead tree trunk alongside the road. With the number of bald eagles and ospreys that I see down there, I was assuming it would be one of them. However, it was a woodpecker. I have heard of the pileated woodpecker but had never seen one for real. It was pulling the trunk apart with abandon and it was huge. Combine the size with the crest and it looked just like a pterodactyl. The thing was massive when compared to any other woodpeckers I see. My phone was not ideal for photos but it did a pretty good job of getting some video.

Killdeer Trying to Distract Me

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While I was shooting super bikes at Shelton, I was wandering along the fence line out on the circuit when a lot of bird noise started up. Regular readers may recall my previous post about a killdeer in Bellevue that was making a lot of noise. This was a pair of killdeer and they should probably reconsider their tactics.

I was totally unaware of them until I got close at which point they started making a hell of a racket. The reason was that they had a couple of chicks with them that were hiding in the longer grass trying to stay out of sight until their parents encouraged them to move. The adults would make a lot of noise and would fan out their wings and turn their butts in my direction. Clearly they didn’t think too much of me.

Once they started making this display, I looked around until I could see the youngsters. I would never have seen them otherwise as they were well concealed even though they were out in the open. I had no desire to make them any more stressed than they already were so I moved along to leave them in peace. They did try to move away from my approach which meant going where I was going but I was soon passed them and they could go back to avoiding the motorbikes.

Heron Fast Food Joint

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I walked out on to the jetty at Olga to look back at the shoreline. A short distance around the shore was an inlet which had about a dozen herons fishing within it. They were constantly stalking through the shallows and grabbing at fish as they passed by. With so many of them there, it must be a productive place to hunt. A heron drive through (or should that be fly through?).