Photos From the Last Two Weeks

Sunset from the marina

Raccoon foraging at low tide

Raccoon eating a crab

A new visitor to the bird feeders: red crossbill

The underside of an unknown intertidal creature - anyone have any ideas? Dave?

Smoke hanging in the air during Friday Harbor's 4th of July fireworks

Lopez Island fireworks and the (almost) full moon, as seen looking over Pear Point

Turkey vulture at Land Bank

Sailboat in Haro Strait

Mama hairy woodpecker feeding her fledgling chick at the suet feeder on a foggy morning

West side summer sunset from Land Bank

Nights and Nighthawk

Most of my photography has happened in the evenings lately, including on the 4th of July when I set up the tripod and experimented with some long (2.5, 5, and 10 second) exposures of the fireworks. Here are a couple of my favorite shots, taken right from the back deck of the houseboat:

I love the branching effect in this next cropped photo. Someone pointed out this one looks kind of like a palm tree:

Here's a shot of last night's sunset - scenic moments like this epitomize San Juan summers for me:

While enjoying the sunset I also heard and then saw a common nighthawk (184), my first addition to the year list in about a month's time. This locally uncommon species is always a real treat to find - I hope to find a few more this month, when they're easiest to find here. With the slow going when it comes to picking up new birds in the height of summer, Dave sits comfortably ahead at 190.

A couple other birdy notes - here's a photo of a house wren I took last week, the first time I've successfully photographed this species. While they often sing from a prominent perch, they've always been too distant for me to photograph in the past, so I was happy when this one popped out of the brush onto a nearby rock for a moment.

 I've been a bit heartbroken to watch the attentive dark-eyed junco parents feeding a couple of brown-headed cowbird chicks at my feeders this week:

For those unfamiliar with the brown-headed cowbird, the story is that they were historically associated with the buffalo of the plains, where they would feed on insects kicked up by the herds. Since they followed the herds, they were unable to stay in a nesting site for the duration of the breeding season, and thus evolved to be brood parasites, which means that they lay their eggs in nests of other bird species, leaving their chicks to be raised by unsuspecting foster parents. A single female cowbird can parasitize up to 30-40 nests in a breeding season. Sometimes she removes eggs of native birds, while in other cases chicks out-compete native nestlings for food or even push them out of the nest. With clearing of habitat caused by logging and development, the cowbird has been able to expand its range further west, and now targets numerous species that haven't co-existed with cowbirds in the past and thus haven't had time to develop adaptations to avoid brood parasitism. Many species that are declining, including numerous warblers and vireos, are doing so in part because of the impact of cowbirds on locally native bird populations.

Happy Fourth! And Explorer Trip Superpod

Happy Fourth of July everyone! We had some nice fireworks here in Friday Harbor, as we do every year. What's awesome is we can watch them right from the docks at our marina.

But I get ahead of myself. The first thing that happened today was another trip on the Western Explorer. When we left the dock it sounded like some of the whales were heading out west towards the Pacific Ocean and a small group of L-Pod whales was on the westside. Once we got on scene, though, it turned out all three pods decided to stay in, and we ended up seeing whales from all three pods.

The first whale we came across way off shore was male J30 Riptide. The whales were really spread out, so after a while we headed in shore to check out some whales who were more grouped up. They were all pretty much milling - heading north for a while, then west offshore, then south, then back east towards shore.

We had a really nice pass by J34 Doublestuf, an 11 year-old male who is already got a "fin sprout" and has grown a lot taller since last year. If you look closely (click on the photo to see a larger version) you can see a notch in his dorsal fin, which is new as of last year:

I was only identifying mostly J-Pod whales out on the water, but once I got home and looked at my photos I found L22 Spirit, shown surfacing here in front of False Bay. She's a 38 year-old female who is the mother of two sons. We were seeing a lot of tall dorsal fins in the area, so they were probably nearby when we were viewing them. Their family group is part of the L12 sub-group that often splits off from the rest of L-Pod.

Later in the evening, we were treated to a spectacular pink and blue sunset before the fireworks. Here's the view from the back deck of our houseboat:

And THEN came the fireworks :)