Sunday Birding

I felt a strong need to see birds Sunday, birds that weren't on my front deck, so I grabbed the camera and drove to Dave's creek.   No mergansers and no dipper.   Now what?   Tern Lake is still iced over and barely starting to show water around the edges.

Quartz Creek!   Maybe there are some early ducks there.   I drove to Cooper Landing and searched.   Nothing.

Okay, the Kenai River bridge always has something.

And it did.   Swans and mergansers, a scaup, and what I think is a juvenile goldeneye.

The closest of four trumpeter swans.

I think this is a juvenile goldeneye, but whether a common or Barrow's,. I can't tell.

 I noticed some movement way downstream and it turned out to be four eagles fighting over what must be a fish.   These eagles were too far away for my lens, so the photos are highly cropped and pretty fuzzy.

On the way back to my vehicle, I came across some Sasquatch tracks.   I laid a glove on the snow for size comparison.

 

From there, I was off to the best place to see eagles, where Cooper Creek flows into the Kenai River, and I was not disappointed. 

But before I stopped at Cooper Creek, I took a walk through the forest to see if I could find some birds.    At one point, it was necessary that I find a girl bush and while I was attending to business, I had a feeling I was being watched....

 This female spruce grouse was frozen like a statue.    I think they feel they are so well camouflaged that if they hold still you won't see them. 

As I was making my way back to the truck, I found evidence of a very ambition beaver.   Apparently it thought it could dam up the Kenai River.

And then, a first!   I've seen eagles taking baths before, but never in the Kenai River!    I watched this process for more than a half hour.

The eagle stood in shallow water, then jumped into deeper water where it splashed around.   Then, it was back to shallow water for a spell, then back into deeper water.

 

At long last, it went back to a nice log to dry off in the warm sunshine.

There were several eagles around that area.   Four were upstream fighting over food, and otghers were in flight.   Time to practice birds in flight!

And, as is my luck, in my best, most crisp shot, the eagle's head was hidden by its wings.

In Pursuit of LYB

From on high, came the message:

Friends, especially the photographers in South Central. It’s that time of year to really concentrate on the small migrants. They are starting to gather in flocks to begin the migration. It’s been my experience over the years that once they begin [to] flock most will be gone in 2 weeks. If you have Elderberry patches in your birding area concentrate on them. If you don’t have Elderberrys concentrate on Alders that have a rusty look to them now and lots of worm holes…

—Doug Lloyd, host/administrator/photographer par excellence of Birds of Alaska on Facebook

I recently realized that I am in love with Little Yellow Birds (LYB), known to birders as warblers.  Yellow warblers, yellow-rumped warblers, orange-crowned warblers, Wilson’s warblers, and on and on and on.

Yellow-rumped warbler at Dave's Creek.

Male yellow warbler in fall plumage in my yard.

Thus, when the day dawned with rare sunshine, I ventured out to find LYB and perhaps an alder flycatcher or two.  I checked the elderberry bushes and the elderberry tree on my property and saw nothing.  I have seen yellow birds flit through here over the years, but they rarely landed for a photo or two.

I drove north on the Seward highway where there are lots of elderberry bushes and alders.

I stopped often and inspected the bushes.   Not a sign of birds, yellow or otherwise.  I saw bushes with boughs so laden with gorgeous red berries that they drooped almost to the ground.   I saw alders so chewed by bugs that the leaves were mere skeletons of themselves.

No LYB on this elderberry.

Fireweed, daisies, and berries on an elderberry bush.

I walked through fields of sweetly-scented clover as I looked for LYB.

I stopped in places where I’d seen birds earlier in the summer.   Nada, zilch, zip.   I drove more than 20 miles, to the Hope cutoff.   Then I drove back.  The only birds I saw were four magpies, and one of the them was dead along the roadside.

When I got home, I sat on the front deck for a while to watch the jays and nuthatches and chickadees and juncos that gather there.

And wouldn’t you know!    A Wilson’s warbler, bright, bright yellow with a spectacular black cap landed in the willow just a few feet off my deck.

I guess it’s true:   the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence.

On the other hand, while I was out pursuing LYB, I filled eight big yellow bags with litter, plus a bunch of larger stuff that wouldn’t fit in bags, yellow or otherwise.


The drive was not a total loss.

My litter find of the day.   Two fillet knives within this scabbard.

An unidentified flower.

Who's Spying on Whom?

Wednesday evening I attended the second meeting of the birding club started by Jonah, age 11.  We met at the Tern Lake picnic area for a field trip, and we had a grand time.   Jonah is our local bird expert.   I've tried to stump him a few times with an unusual bird, but he was always way ahead of me.   Jonah can also identify each bird by its sound, and mimic it.

His mom held her hand out at about the three foot level, indicating how high Jonah's stack of bird books would be if he piled them up.  "And they're reference books, not kids' books."   He was three when he first expressed his interest in birds.

Jonah was carrying a DSLR camera with a fantastic lens.   "Wow, Jonah," I said, "there's your first year's college tuition right there."  The camera was a gift from his grandfather.

He also got a great shot of a yellow warbler that was flitting around and not holding still.  Tough to do.  I could not.

This boardwalk is where people can watch spawning salmon entering the lake later this summer.

A part of the lake from a viewpoint I rarely photograph.

The highlight was the Saw-whet Owl's nest.

The owl's nest is in the box fastened to the tree.  Rose has an app on her smart phone that shows us a close-up of any bird.

 We spied on the obliging owl for a bit, then wandered the trails looking for more birds.  Yellow Warblers showed up, and at the lake, Mew Gulls and Arctic Terns were flying around.  Yellow-legged Sandpipers passed by and disappeared in the floating vegetation on the lake.


My very thoughtful neighbor Miles brought two kayaks and escorted first Jonah and then Hanna onto the lake to see the birds close up.

That's Jonah on the boardwalk, Hannah getting into a kayak while Miles waits in his kayak, and Jonah's mom.

While Miles watched over the youngsters on the lake, I had a chat with fellow litter-picker Sam from Seward.   He's been tending a stretch of highway just out of Seward for many, many years.  We swapped litter stories and techniques.

Sam is looking for Mountain goats on the mountains across the lake.

 

Sam picks up litter while riding a four-wheeler (ATV) with a garbage can on its cargo deck.   He said he's put 2500 miles on it since he started picking up litter, and asked me how many miles I've put on my truck.  I hadn't a clue, because I do only a mile a day.   My farthest point away from home is 40 miles.

But, back to birding.

 Another neighbor, Rose, read off her list of birds spotted recently.   Most of them were in her yard, some here at Tern Lake, and another at Kenai Lake.

"TL" is for Tern Lake and "KL" is for Kenai Lake.

My goodness. 

On the way home, I stopped to check on the Red Necked Grebe.  I understand when the ducklings hatch they climb up on mama's back.   I would love to see that.

Looks like all is fine.   The three-year-old brown bear hasn't found her yet.   Miles' mom chased it off the highway near the lake at noon, and that evening his dad had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting it in his driveway.   Mom says it acts like it doesn't know what to do.   It's on its own for the first time.


As to spying on the birds,  who's spying on whom?

Love this picture.   Too bad it isn't in tight focus.