Subject: [Tweeters] New field trip photos- Hope Island and Deception Pass
Date: Jul 15 23:06:26 2007
From: Kelly McAllister - mcallisters4 at comcast.net


Great pictures. Something for me to aspire to. Can't believe the perfect exposures of eagles despite the brightly sky in the background. Kevin must know how to manually override the camera's aperture choices.

I found myself wanting to identify the fish that the eagles were catching along the shore on Whidbey. They look like herring or smelt. In my experience in South Puget Sound, smelt spawn in early fall. Maybe they start in mid-summer up north.

Herring generally spawn in winter and spring, some well into June. July would be awfully late.

I think it must have been a smelt spawning run on that beach. They clearly weren't sandlance.

The eagle toward the end had a sole, I think. Didn't look like a Starry Flounder.

The picture of the Pelagic Cormorant nest was outstanding. I wasn't aware of nesting Pelagic Cormorants in northern Puget Sound. I know there was quite a colony on the Warren Avenue bridge in Bremerton. I thought that was quite unusual, being in central Puget Sound. Once again, I need to pull out the latest edition of "Birds of Washington" and get the latest.

Thanks for sharing the field trip pictures Kevin. The quality of the photography will keep me coming back.

Kelly McAllister
Olympia, Washington