A bit of birding.

I've been doing some (not necessarily successful) birding lately. I keep making the mistake of bringing the dog with me, so I feel less awkward walking around with a camera. She's not the greatest birding companion to be honest. In any cay, over the course of the last few months I'd been trying to gather up enough fuel to do a blog on my birding experiences. So far, nothing too great, as I'm still learning where it comes to wild bird photography. I'm lucky to have the opportunity to get pretty close to the animals at Sarvey. I doubt I'll be so lucky where the wild birds are concerned. What I really need is a partner to go out hiking/birding with. Someone who already has a pretty good idea of how to go about things. In the meantime, I'm left to wander the neighborhood following the sounds of Red-winged Blackbirds.

Speaking of which, I finally was able to get a good enough look at my mysterious blackbirds to decide that they're definitely red-winged black birds. I also feel as thought their main goal in life it to taunt me, and lead me around like a lovesick puppy. These birds will land yards away from me, and when I attempt to approach them, they fly just a few yards further, all the while singing their smug little songs. You win this time Black birds.

Here I've included several, blurry, and not so great images of the blackbirds. They like to flock around the retention ponds/wetland preserves that we have several of in the neighborhood. Three to be exact. We get a lot of other wildlife as well, (the dog flushed out a cottontail not too long ago, which resulted in me chasing after her down the street, while she pursued it), but these black birds are definitely the most consistent. 

I can hear them out there singing at the crack of dawn if I care to get up early enough for it. Most of the time I really don't, as they still play chicken in the mornings, and I have less energy for it that early.

When it starts to get warmer the frogs will begin to show up in large amounts. I have a ton of left over pictures from last summer. I have to say, when I move, the wildlife will probably be what I miss the most, since I'm bound to end up in an apartment for awhile. At least I might be able to set up a bird feeder of some sort if we get to have a balcony/porch. I hope we do. 

Other than the black birds, we also get a decent variety of water fowl, that are also starting to crop up now that it's getting warmer outside. While I was out the last time, I was excited to find a bonded pair of Ring-necked Ducks. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but they've got pretty unique looking beaks. I traipsed around to the other side of the pond, but I still had a difficult time photographing them, as they were pretty wary. It makes me really want a zoom lens of some sort. They were joined shortly after I arrived by a male Mallard, who proceeded to crash the party and follow them around the pond.

I promise I'll stop combining photos, when they start getting better.

Moving on later in the month, I was on a ferry ride from Edmonds to Kingston, and had the chance to get some decent pictures of some of the birds on the way over. There were a ton of gulls and Cormorants, everywhere along the way. So many cormorants.

After pouring through my bird books, and comparing gulls for around half an hour, I decided this guy looked most like a Thayer's gull. which is entirely possible given that we're right on the coast, and in these guys' territory. Though we don't get nearly as many of them as some parts of Canada. 

Then there were these guys. I nearly missed them entirely until they started making noise. I knew right away they were Cormorants, mainly because you tend to get a good long look at a bird after spending twenty minutes mopping up it's poop. And I literally mean mopping. These guys are messy, messy birds. I wasn't sure what type of Cormorant it was though, until I got the chance to look through the bird book, and compare it to others. I'm pretty sure they're Western, Double-crested Cormorants. (There's a difference between Eastern and western physically, and though they appear to look more like Easterns, It's more likely they're non-breeding westerns and it's just hard to tell with the lighting.) The only other possibility is that they're Brandt's Cormorants, since again, we're right in the territory for the bird, and have a decent population of them. But if you zoom in on the pictured I took, the very slight crest atop their heads, and the placement of their eyes don't seem quite right for Brandt's Cormorants. I'm fairly certain they're Double-crested.

That's really all I've had the opportunity to do as far as birding goes. I've pretty much always have my camera on me nowadays, so if it comes down to it, and I see an interesting bird, or really any bird at this point, I'll push to stop and take pictures. 

If you haven't had the chance to read my last Sarvey blog, including the Eagle Festival, then you should visit the previous blog. It was posted within hours of this one.