Thanks Steve. The loon was doing the big work. I am bummed by a missed photo opportunity where I was slow catching the loon surfacing with a fish while fully surrounded by the boiling jumping school. That missed chance will haunt me for some time.
While
@Gyrfalcon22 was visiting Westport, I headed south to Ridgefield NWR to drive the Auto Tour Route. Usually, I complete the loop twice. When my wife is with me, I drive the first loop and she drives the second. That gives me a chance to shoot out of both seats of the car. It doesn’t always work as the birds just won’t stay stationary (damn them…), but whatever. But she had to work on Friday; someone has to keep this newly-minted retiree in the style to which he has become accustomed…
For this visit, I was interested in trying to capture some images of owls. I had seen recent reports (eBird) and even pictures (Pacific Northwest Birding on Facebook) of short-eared owls, barn owls, and great horned owls. When I have seen short-eared owls previously at American Camp on San Juan Island and at the Samish Flats, the short-eared owls were flying over the same grasslands and marshes at the same times as hunting Northern harriers and American kestrels.
In my two circuits I had seen several Northern harriers both perched on the ground and launching into the air as they flew acrobatically just above the vegetation in their pursuit of voles.
I even captured the iconic “kestrel perched on area-closed sign” image that I often see others show (and that I have captured previously from Ridgefield NWR).
But no owls after two circuits. The great horned appears to hang out in some of the thicker woodlands and without knowing exactly where to look, a single sleeping bird can be really hard to see when I am by myself [Driving and birding on a narrow road is risky...]. And the barn owl was a rare sighting. But short-eared owls shouldn’t be that cryptic, at least so I thought. After all, they should be out foraging with the Northern harriers. But in two circuits, I had nothing. I had some suspicion that something special was at one spot along a canal; on both circuits, I saw the same red car parked in the same spot and the driver staring intently at a bank of dried grass (gathering intel from other birders is VERY important here). The driver passed me later while I was waiting for a Northern harrier to start flying again. He had seen the great horned owl and the short-eared owl. And yes, the latter was at the spot where he had been camping out. So, circuit number 3…. And there it was, dozing in the midst of the long grass – VERY cryptic. How could I have missed it on the first two circuits…
When I first saw it, the bird was dozing with its eyes closed.
But it stirred a bit and opened it eyes to reveals its bright yellow irises. You can just see the short "tufts" protruding from the top of its head above its eyes.
All-in-all, a good day (with more pictures to come from this trip).
Steve
