Refuge Wednesday

 A sunny start but cloudy later..I miss the sun. But we take what we can get and try our best.

No harriers, no eagles, no red-tailed hawks. Lots of Great Blue Herons, ducks and Tundra swans. Even though the swans are quite a distance away across the ice, you can hear them clearly. Fortunately I caught a group flying.

Northern shovelers are pretty and quite cute as they look for food on land. A few Pintails added a soft beauty to the day. And then the juvenile Black-crowned Night heron bundled up in a manner that made it hard to see if it was real!

Enjoy!

When focussed on feeding herons do not react to outside stimulus..several vehicles moved around and watched this feeding..

Tundra swans..beautiful and noisy

Male and female Northern Shovelers

Graceful looking Pintails

Shovelers are quite colorful

Night Heron...looks all puffed up and sleeping..

Regal GBH

Refuge Wednesday...again

A cold but sunny day at the refuge...quite a bit of activity around. Harriers of course..they are always moving around and playing, or is it hunting?

A couple of eagles, Black-crowned Night Herons both adult and juvenile, Red-tailed Hawks,  Ducks..Northern Shoveler, Golden Eye, Mallard, Kestrels, and a Great Blue heron on the way out..

Lovely to be there..

Refuge Wednesday

 I wandered out to the refuge to see what was up...not much. One lonely eagle on the ice, one Great Blue Heron, a couple of Kestrels and lots of Northern Harriers. It was a bit dreary, sunshine had abandoned us, still nice to be out though. Here's a few photos from the day...

Juvenile Red-tailed hawk

Male Harrier, aka the Grey Ghost

Great Blue with Pied bill grebes..

Sunshine in the distance

This is Harrier play time - finding mates, etc...

Probably the same Red-tailed as earlier..

Manzanita trip

 In mid-December we and the kids traveled to Manzanita for a week by the ocean. While we expected a lot of rain, we were rewarded with almost 4 days of sunshine! Quite amazing for that time of year and very welcome.

Here's a few shots from the trip..