Tag Archives: hunting

How Many Coots Do You Need to Stay Safe?

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!

A Coot For Dinner

A few times recently I have been down at Juanita Bay Park when the eagles have been hunting.  While everyone thinks of bald eagles eating fish, they are also happy to eat birds if available.  We have had large flocks of coots on the lake and they are a plentiful food source.  They stay close together on the surface but, when the eagles fly close, the flocks will get startled and start fluttering around as they try to evade the predators.

The eagles are not bothered about the flock.  They just want to isolate one of the birds which they can then take out.  They will swoop around until they can take out one bird which they then land on top of and sit on it while it drowns.  Once it has stopped moving, they take off and carry it back to the pole in the bay where they can eat at their leisure.

Before you eat a coot, you need to pluck it.  The eagles make quick work of this and, with a breeze blowing, the air is quickly filled with feathers as they clean up their kill.  Once that is done, time to tuck in to dinner.  A coot is quickly eaten and then they fly off to a log to wash up before retiring to a tree to rest and digest.  If there is anything left of the carcass, you can guarantee that the crows will be paying close attention and will close in to take care of matters.

https://youtu.be/xy8UeqNzxRQ

Heron Swallowing Its Lunch

Herons hunting for their food have been on here before.  I have often been trying to get good shots of them making the strike as they go after a fish in the shallows.  The effort to then eat that fish has also been covered here.  Therefore, I am going to be repetitive today.  I happened to be a lot closer than usual to a heron when it was fishing and I got some good close up shots of its head as it swallowed its meal.  Looks like the fish didn’t have much of a chance!

Heron Fast Food Joint

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?).

Seals Looking for a Salmon Dinner

A trip to the Chittenden Locks in Ballard in the fall is a good time to see salmon making their way up through the fish ladder en route to their spawning grounds.  If we know the salmon are there, so do their predators.  On this day, it was seals.  Seals and sea lions are both common at the locks when hunting for salmon.  A pair of seals were playing around in the waters near the locks, no doubt choosing their moment for a snack.  Another pair of seals had been a bit more aggressive in their thinking.  They had made their way into the fish ladder itself.

There are gates on the entrance to the ladder that are intended to allow the fish through and not the larger predators but I guess on this day, the gates had been left open.  Our first glimpse on one of the seals was as it was chomping its way through a salmon it had already caught.  It was making swift work of it.  A while later we saw them again.  They would haul themselves out on to the walls of the ladder for a break before diving back in to search for the next snack!