Crappy picture or not, a nice find!
Crappy picture or not, a nice find!
Killdeer nest. It was right in the center of the gravel road I was walking on, fortunately one not traveled on too frequently.
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Great job, Steve ! Tokeland is super cool, yet often my nemesis spot. Love the layout and really nice feel. Willipa bay is a gem. It has its share of neat sharks. 6 and 7 gill, and historically an occasional gill-netted great white.Tokeland has become a part of the birding loop that my wife and I take from Olympia to the coast via Bottle Beach State Park, Westport Marina, Westport Light State Park, and then Tokeland, (or reverse the loop if that works better with the tides). In fall and winter, we may add @Gyrfalcon22 ’s haunts at the Brady Loop Rd. if there is time. Our initial interest in Tokeland was derived from sightings of unusual migrants there that were posted last fall in eBird.
Tokeland sticks out as a peninsula into the north shore of Willapa Bay. The harbor sits at the transition between the more exposed sandy beach and mud flats of the bay. The area supports an active oyster mariculture industry. You can see great blue herons, marbled godwits, ring-billed gulls, and other shorebirds foraging among bales of oyster shells. The feathered food attracts bald eagles and peregrine falcons.
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The same biological productivity that feeds the oysters feeds hordes of migrating shorebirds in fall and spring and overwintering species as well. These include short-billed dowitchers
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And least sandpipers.
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In the last visit, we arrived just after high tide to watch a steady stream of small flocks wing their way from the sandy beaches of the coast where they spent the high tide to forage the newly-exposed mudflats deeper in the bay
The outer edge of the harbor includes a wide breakwater that leads to a raised platform that is typically busy with crab fishers and a floating dock for transient boats and fishing boats. The elevated position of the raised platform provides great views of bird species diving in the channels, like this western grebe.
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At lower tides, the pilings of the floating dock provide an opportunity to play “red light, green light” with diving birds. Typically, diving birds will only let you get so close, but when they dive you can reposition yourself to a closer distance. The pillars that support the floating provide some cover when the bird pops back up to the surface. A bird is less likely to swim off if it is handling food or interacting with other birds.
I played this game with horned grebes and captured a few nice images of this individual in breeding colors. You can see their common name is “horned” grebe.
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This one shows their “hex vision”.
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And lunch was bay pipefish, I think.
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I used to same strategy to get close to some red-breasted mergansers. There were two pairs diving near the floating dock. [Extra points for a witty caption for what the female on the left may be saying.]
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a hen,
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and a drake.
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Steve
I lucked out on the mergansers. The drake was almost too close. It helped that we were the only people on the dock at the time (no crab fishing folks tending their traps though there were traps in the water with lines tied to the dock).Great job, Steve ! Tokeland is super cool, yet often my nemesis spot. Love the layout and really nice feel. Willipa bay is a gem. It has its share of neat sharks. 6 and 7 gill, and historically an occasional gill-netted great white.
The best birds always seem to be far out when I am there. I see shots like yours-the mergansers in close, and I wonder why I see them from 300+ yards? Same when the long-tailed duck or rare eider shows. If I am coming around they will all decide to hit the open bay. Here is a shot of a long-tailed duck that was so far out I did not even know I got a shot of it until later on the computer screen. Like 800+ yards.
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The female merganser in your shot is definitely channeling Lebron James if anyone follows the NBA at all. Crying foul, or in this case, "Crying fowl"...
Possibly, the holes indicated the burrow opening of amphipods, like the beach hopper Traskorchestia traskiana. They feed on seaweed or eelgrass that washes up on the beach.I was fishing a beach this weekend and noticed a lot of round holes in the sand in the upper tidal zone. The holes looked similar to what I've seen in the north sound when oystercatchers are around. Can't say I've ever seen any oystercatchers down there, but did see some sandpipers. The holes looked much bigger then the bill of a sandpiper. Do the bird experts here think those holes were from sandpipers or other birds? Sorry, should have taken a picture for reference.
SF
Possibly, the holes indicated the burrow opening of amphipods, like the beach hopper Traskorchestia traskiana. They feed on seaweed or eelgrass that washes up on the beach.
Steve