with apologies to those who will receive this more than once, yesterday was
an incredible day to photograph... east lake washington audubon allowed me
to lead a trip to photograph great blue herons, and we did so in fair
numbers. however, it wasn't the only species seen...

at medina park, two nests above the pond were in obvious housekeeping mode,
and at least one pair (the top-most) let us know in no uncertain terms that
the eggs hadn't been laid yet, as they were not above making plans for
future eggs... on the pond below, there were ring-necked ducks, a pair of
lesser scaup females, three eurasian wigeon males, and a probable
eurasian-american wigeon hybrid (same one as last year?)... i was lucky to
catch a bufflehead male in full technicolour headdress, from purples to
greens to oranges and reds and... for the second time in two weeks, a
double-crested cormorant decided to join the GBHEs high up in their tree
near their nest, and at least one heron was visibly upset by this
arrogance...

at the cedar river outflow, the lighting was as good as it gets, but little
beyond cormorants were out and about at the outflow, though on the river
were seen barrow's and common goldeneyes, buffleheads, and one juvenile
eagle who turned on a harrassing gull (which turned into an aerial combat
display for about 2 minutes), etc... when i couldn't find birds to
remember, i found Zoey, a very friendly (siberian?) husky with the most
amazing blue eyes...

lastly, the black river heronry produced somewhere between 50 and 75 GBHEs
out and about, mostly on nest or building same... we were lucky in that at
least two red-tail hawks kept stirring things up... bushtits, black-capped
chickadees, both kinglets, song and fox sparrows were also in abundance...

for me, the day was not yet over... after a wonderful burrito (ask in
private) on rainier ave, i decided the lighting was just too good not to see
what else was out and about, and union bay natural area said "come on
down!"...

over 200 crows were harrassing and being harrassed on the trees at the north
end, and they would occasionally take flight in flock for their own personal
reasons, to return a moment or two later... i settled into my normal
afternoon spot at shoveler pond, and while numbers weren't great, the
photography was wonderful... a pair of yellow-rumped warblers teased me for
20 minutes before allowing a half-decent shot... the muskrats and killdeer
were back, the shovelers were fewer, but added to the show this week were
lesser scaup females and at least three ruddy ducks (one male, two
females)... almost everyone kept to the other side of the pond, however, so
i had to be happy with aerial photograph of incoming and outgoing birds...
one in particular was a canada goose (unknown varietal) coming in for a full
frontal landing not far RIGHT HERE...

at end of my day, i was replaced by two fellow tweeters (mike and mike's
friend) and their canon lenses, and hope they were able to capture something
they could tell us about...

in all, it was a glorious day of mental rejuvenation and spring promise...
i'm not quite sure, but almost every one of the best photos was an aerial,
either coming in for a landing, or buzzing by at breakneck speed... as
usual, the photographs can be found on my website in the Photo of the Month
gallery... Enjoy!

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org
all over lake washington

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