Yesterday was a fabulous day to get outside, I had a couple of hours free so
I headed to Woods Creek in Monroe to watch the Pink Salmon spawning. I had a
perfect perch on a sunny bankside with good cover, a handy tree to sit back
against. The salmon were actively digging nests and splashing about, males
chasing each other with their dorsal fins out of the water like minature
orca whales. In places there were quite a few escaped eggs bobbing about
down the current. With all this abundance a couple of ouzels spent the
entire 90 minutes I was there fighting over who gets the goods. They chased
each other upstream and downstream, yelling at each other with a series of
rapid chirps, and should one land, the other would try to land on top of the
other, causing no end of splashing and chirping and wing fluttering
discombobulation. They would then fly off again, yelling back and forth.
They must have gone back and forth in front of me 40 or 50 times,
relentlessly arguing. In contrast to this noisily active pair, a blue heron
cruised in for a calm and stately landing, then began to poke its large bill
into a shoreside dead salmon, ripping out goodly sized chunks and lifted its
head skyward to swallow them. I had never seen a heron eat something dead
before. After about 15 minutes, it paused then flew off with a squawk of
protest and a mink rambled up and began snatching bites of the dead fish
abandoned by the heron. Unfortunately the wind shifted and must of carried
my scent to the mink, who after looking around nervously, moved off
downstream and out of view.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Maltby, WA

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