I Used to Hate Birds

I spent this morning cruising Ridgefield at a nice leisurely pace, trying to ignore the gunshots.  Found some good stuff.  The Wilson's Snipe flock was chowing down quite close to the road and I was able to sit and chug my coffee with them for like twenty minutes.


Just look at that freakin bird.  How can you not get mesmerized by it's patterns?  Some birds are so simple- a junco?  Come on, you can easily remember it's colors.  But this guy... There's just so much going on.  I couldn't even try to draw one in detail from memory.


Ah, so good.

Peregrine in winter

I found the raccoons hanging out again, though this time a half dozen river otters stole the show.  They were fishing and swimming and lounging and chowing down...


A Great Blue Heron was following the otters along the water, grabbing their leftovers whenever possible...


You get the idea.  Farther up the road I found a Bald Eagle chowing down (that's the theme of this post, apparently) on a fresh kill.


Eventu…

Despite appearances, it has not been all owls all the time lately.  Here's an assortment of birds and things from much closer to home...

Hooded Merganser, Ridgefield NWR

 Raccoons, Ridgefield NWR




Red-tailed Hawk, Ridgefield NWR


Cooper's Hawk silhouette, Airport Way


Troutdale


Wood Ducks, Milwaukee Ledding Library Pond


Townsend's Warbler, Milwaukee Ledding Library Pond


American Wigeon, Milwaukee Ledding Library Pond


 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Elk Rock Island

Canada Goose x domestic hybrid, Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

 Eurasian Wigeon, Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden


Underwater Lesser Scaup, Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

And that's all I've got.  Good times!

A week off from work?!  What to do??  A crazy road trip to eastern Washington and Idaho, of course!  Apparently I am completely addicted to driving east these days, and tales of a reliable Northern Hawk Owl were enough to convince me to get back in the car.  On Christmas day I loaded up the mutts and my good friend Chris for a 2-day turned 3-day adventure.


Our first stop was near Kennewick, WA to look for a Snowy Owl.  We got briefly sidetracked in this land of wind turbines when we realized there was one close enough to the road to walk up to it..


Wow.  Those things are crazy.  No dead birds below this one.  We drove up the road a bit to look for the owl and quickly found a little white dot.


Could it really be that easy??  Yes.  Yes it could be.


We had time for one more stop before sunset and I chose a park along the Snake River.  Here a pair of Great Horned Owls were sharing a tree with a Northern Saw-whet Owl.

Note the second owl on the limb to the right



As you can tell, it was gett…