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The fishing pier will be soon be closing for three months for repairs, so I have been going down there during these sunny afternoons. Thursday (2/25) the sun and water were just right to allow shots of birds swimming underwater.
Male red-breasted merganser diving between the fishing pier and the marina breakwater.
A horned grebe was diving inside the marina below the walkway that leads out to the fishing pier. It would swim underwater looking for things attached to the rocks. I got a sequence of the grebe surfacing. I wonder if a circular polarizing filter would have made the photos better.
I have speculated that Katy and Don, the marina's resident kingfisher pair, have become habituated to the presence of people. Thursday afternoon Katy let people get fairly close when she perched on the walkway rail while hunting fish inside the marina.
The fishing pier will be soon be closing for three months for repairs, so I have been going down there during these sunny afternoons. Thursday (2/25) the sun and water were just right to allow shots of birds swimming underwater.
Male red-breasted merganser diving between the fishing pier and the marina breakwater.
He stayed in the middle of the pond when I was there. I couldn't stay long and took the photo handheld with my 5DIII + 100-400L II telephoto zoom. If the merganser is going to be there for awhile, I should return and set up my 500L telephoto + 1.4x teleconverter on a tripod using either the 5DIII (cloudy day) or 7DII (sunny day).
Saturday (2/27) a group of ten pigeon guillemots in breeding plumage were swimming off the fishing pier. I usually see 2-3 year round and have never seen this many at once.
Don Kingfisher, half of the marina's resident pair, flew south over the waterfront.
His mate, Katy, was entertaining tourists walking out to the fishing pier. It is amazing how close she will let someone approach before taking off from her perch on the handrail.
She flew to a walkway support directly under passing pedestrians.
Two birders were looking through their binoculars at distant birds while Katy was literally underfoot just a few feet away.
good shots, Bill... Katy certainly doesn't seem to mind people, though i suspect the repair work may force her to at least refrain from perching on the railings as much...
Three more from Saturday. A female goldeneye was diving inside the marina below the walkway leading out to the fishing pier. These are shots of her swimming underwater.
Four Harlequin ducks were in the Sound off Sunset Ave. in the morning.
Terry, Daren, and I went to Sprague Pond at Lynnwood's Mini Park. A double-crested cormorant transitioning into breeding plumage was on the west shore.
Two surf scoters were foraging for food amid the barnacles and mussels embedded on the supports to the fishing pier.
A snipe was visible from the #1 viewing platform of the marsh. It is the first snipe I have seen since 2/1.
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