Biting Off More Than You Can Chew...Belted Kingfisher at Lake Washington

Here's a bird that was too successful. This Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) hit the pot of gold, enough fish to feed it for days, but...how to consume it?

I was on a walk along the shore of Lake Washington at Gene Coulon Park early one morning in June when I spotted the poor bird and its problem of too much in the way of riches. I wonder if there is some metaphor here about income inequality or something?

Most of the time the bird leaves while I'm snapping pictures. This time I watched and watched and videoed the poor bird and it never solved its conundrum. There was a Bald Eagle nearby...I'm sure it would have offered a solution to the problem.

The Eye of the Bufflehead (or not)

Buffleheads (Bucephala albeola) are beautiful little diving ducks that I don't get to see all that often. They aren't all that rare, but the lack of really favorable habitat nearby (large lakes and marshlands) means they are all that common. So my pictures (when I can get them) tend to be far afield.

This time I was up north in Washington for the holidays. On my morning walks along the shores of Lake Washington I had some good views of a variety of shorebirds and the Buffleheads were close, but once again because of the dreary weather I didn't get their eyes.

All the guides to photographing birds say that catching the reflection of the eyes makes the picture, but Buffleheads have black eyes on a pure black face. One other feature that can challenge Bufflehead photographers is catching the iridescence of the feathers around the face. But one really needs sunlight for that. So the challenge remains for me. One of these days....

Buffleheads are among the smallest of the ducks, and they typically dive when they are foraging for food, spending a great deal of time underwater (that's an additional challenge in photography). They spend very little time on land other than nesting or leading nestlings from one body of water to another. They nest in the hollows of trees excavated by other birds, especially Northern Flickers.

A Spectacular Duck: Hooded Mergansers at Lake Washington

I'm sure they've been around in the distance these last few years. They are not rare birds, but for some strange reason I never saw a Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) until late 2017 when I saw a few females in the distance on the Siuslaw River in Oregon. I saw no more until last November and December during my holiday travels, when I made seven separate sightings.

I saw them first on the Siuslaw River in Florence (again), but they were off in the distance and I wasn't able to get much in the way of pictures. But when we arrived in the Seattle area I had a chance to walk along the shores of Lake Washington each morning while we were there. And there was a flock of them that didn't scurry away while I walked past on the walkway. I finally got some half-decent shots.

There is a huge contrast between males and females of the species. The males are the ones with the big white spots behind the eyes. As can be seen, the feathers can be raised to form a very prominent crest. The females are a little more drab, but they can raise their feathers to form a crest the same way.

This was a female Common Merganser hanging out with the others

The Hooded Mergansers are rather famous for having precocious chicks. The ducks nest in hollows in trees up to 50 feet above the ground, and within 24 hours of hatching the chicks jump out of the nest, falling to the forest floor. At that point they gather and follow mom to the nearest body of water.

Close Encounters of the Ring-billed Gull Kind

I absolutely love a good zoom lens. At times it allows me to identify an obscure bird from a quarter mile away, but there are other times when it allows a certain intimacy with a different species. Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis) are very common in human environments, choosing garbage dumps and parks as their habitat. As a result, they don't fear humans and will make a close approach. That's when the zoom lens brings out some bit of the personality of the bird.

I was on our holiday journey in the Seattle area, at Gene Coulon Park on the shore of Lake Washington when I came across this individual on the pier. It didn't move as I walked by, so I took it as an invitation to snap a few close shots. It was disappointed though...I didn't have any food with me.

Great Blue Heron on Lake Washington

No close-ups of any birds tonight. This is just a very pretty moment on our last night in the Seattle area. We were walking along the shoreline of Lake Washington after sunset, looking for the beaver we saw the other day. Instead we had a peaceful view of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) fishing in the twilight. 

The Great Blue Herons seem particularly common around the Puget Sound, which is no surprise given the widespread freshwater wetlands and saltwater habitats that they thrive on. They tend to range farther north than some of their relatives, especially the egrets. I watched them in an intense fight with a pair of Bald Eagles in Victoria on Vancouver Island a couple of years ago.

Black-capped Chickadee at Seward Park in Seattle

Today's bird is not a regular in California, though it is reported sometimes in the extreme north of the state. The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) ranges across North America, but mostly in the northern tier of states and Canada as well as Alaska. Obviously, then, I'm not in California. We were at Seward Park on Lake Washington in Seattle. The bird is common up this way, but it's the first time I've ever seen one.

The Cornell bird site describes the species as curious and unafraid of humans, which seemed true enough, seeing as how this one allowed me to take pictures in fairly close quarters (I was about 10-12 feet away). For such small-brained creatures, they have extraordinary mind power, being able to accurately store the location of thousands of hidden seeds in their memories. They also have complex calls that resemble language, used in identification of different flocks and the presence of predators.

And they are cute...