Fir Island Birds

On to Fir Island! 

As I drove down Rawlin's Road I saw a single bird on a wire which I presumed at a great distance was a shrike.  It flushed very early into a field and spent a few seconds hovering, but not quite enough time for me to unholster the camera.  When I came back I found the shrike had flown across a field and was now on a side road.  I anticipated having the same problem with flushing again.  The bird did flush, but when it returned to the wire it did so immediately beside my vehicle!  These kinds of things just don't normally happen.  I snapped a lot of photos all of which are probably the best shrike photos I have, but the entire time I was lamenting that there wasn't a natural perch within several hundred yards of us.  I wondered if we couldn't pay some of these farmers to place a snag or two a few feet into their fields.?  

 Later on Fir Island near the Jensen Access I found a pair of Common Ravens.  I was able to park fairly close to them because they were scavenging the remains of a bird that was in a field.  Check out the beak on this bird! 

 

And a little lesson for beginning birders.  Notice the diamond-shaped tail on this raven.  Crows have a fan-shaped tail with a rounded end and this is one of the best ways to tell these two birds apart when they are flying overhead.  

  

On my way home I noticed an interesting sunset so I stopped my car, retrieved it from the back where I had place it for safe-keeping while shopping, and took this photo of the sunset.  

Promises, Promises

We've all heard the common saying that promises are made to be broken.  One of these days I'm going to learn not to make promises about future posts on this blog!  It was my stated intention on my last post to present photos of some of the birds of March's Point.  However, we had a very nice day today and I, being unfettered by family or obligations, went on a photo expedition to Fir Island.  Since I consider the day's photography more interesting than March's Point, I'm going to show you photographs of today's travels instead. 

I had made it less than a half mile from my home when I encountered this Common loon in the Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes.  This is as close as I've been able to get to one in several years.  When I saw the bird I quickly pulled over to the side of the road and equipped my 200-400mm zoom lens with my 1.7X tele-converter which almost doubles the size of the image.  Given the size of the image sensor in my camera I'm told by a friend, who is a professional photographer, that this gives me the 35mm equivalent of over 1000mm.  But so much for the technical information. 

So back to the Common loon... 

This was probably the friendliest loon I've ever encountered.  As I was leaving it waved goodbye to me several times with its foot!   I had to take a photograph since I know there are a lot of Doubting Thomas' out there, especially when it comes to any of my stories! 

Just before crossing to Fir Island I found one of several groups of swans not far from the road.  The lighting was excellent and I took a good many photos of them but I won't bore you with swan photos.  However I did catch this little spat between this adult and juvenile Trumpeter swan.  

Yard Update

I mentioned that those last photos of American robins in the madrone trees were taken on a very cloudy day while it was raining.  Since then I've had a few periods of better weather and the opportunity to again photograph the robins in the madrone trees.  These photos are substantially better as far as quality is concerned so I'm posting them too. 

They robins typically land on a branch and lean to pluck a berry from the cluster.  However as time goes on the easier berries to reach have either fallen off of the tree or have already been eaten. 

This leads to leaning as far as possible, often losing one's balance and having to snatch a berry on the fly.

If you're good at the technique you are rewarded with a berry!

We've had several more influxes of American robins where there are about twenty in the yard feeding and utilizing the bird baths.  And again, that number doesn't include many other robins in the general area.  

As far as yard happenings, our California quail have returned after an absence of several weeks.  Midway through raising this season's brood the adult female disappeared and the male seemed to be rearing the young ones on his own.  Unfortunately we had an imbalance in sexes with this year's hatchlings and we are now left with a covey consisting of four males and one female.  This doesn't bode especially well for the breeding season next year. 

A while back I posted a photo of a Slate-colored junco we had in the yard.  I've been keeping a watchful eye since but haven't spotted the bird again.  I was really lucky to have been sitting in the yard with my camera that day when the bird made its appearance.  

I stepped out the south door today and when I did an accipiter flushed from our yew tree.  I don't think most of the birds realized that it had sneaked into the yard because they were still in the area until it flew.  This is at least the second time we know that the accipiter has been hunting from the yew tree. 

Coming next... birds of March's Point.