Wildlife of Edmonds, WA.

[Bill Anderson]

Even though it rained all day Friday (4/19) and my co-conspirator Terry skipped town for the weekend, I still managed to take an impressive number of photos, starting at the marsh.

White-crowned sparrow.


For the second day in a row, a small flock of cedar waxwings has been hanging out in the tree behind the #2 viewing platform.


Wesley, the Anna's hummer who guards the west (#1) viewing platform, provided some goods photo ops.

First he went after some bugs.


Then he posed for me. Here is one of the many good posing photos I took of him.


A feisty marsh wren played peek-a-boo with me through the cattails.

 

[Bill Anderson]

The next stop was Pt. Edwards, where a pair of killdeer is raising a brood of four chicks.



The parents did not like my presence, as one tried the old broken wing trick to lead me away from the chicks.


While the other gathered the chicks under its wings.




I, however, am the least of their worries.

 

[Bill Anderson]

The last stop was Sunset Ave. above Puget Sound.

The Brant continue to gather in the waters below.


While a peregrine falcon cruised by in sky above.
Edit: Correction to Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawk. See posts below




A river otter swam by with a fish(?). It is probably the same one we had seen on our beach walk the day before.

 

[Christine]

Looks like you had a great day inspite of the rain.... i think i have seen more birds with your photo's than i have my back yard!!! Really dissapointed they arent at the feeders like last yr so i do enjoy your adventures.

 

[fiznatty]

Bill, your falcon actually looks like a mature Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawk (I can never tell the difference), based on the shape of the body, tail and wings and the markings on chest and face. A nice find regardless.

Great catch with the otter and fish.

Max

 

[Bill Anderson]

Bill, your falcon actually looks like a mature Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawk (I can never tell the difference), based on the shape of the body, tail and wings and the markings on chest and face. A nice find regardless.

Great catch with the otter and fish.

Max

Max: You are right. The original photos were just silhouettes which I really had to lighten up on Picasa. Its square tail looks more like that of a sharpie than a Copper's, but one of my bird books (Hawks from Every Angle by Jerry Liguori, Princeton Paperbacks) says the tails of Cooper's hawks can be square looking during molt.

You should come to Edmonds this weekend and look for that otter. That is two days in a row it has been in relatively the same location. Someone had seen it on the railroad tracks a few minutes before I saw it in the water.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Saturday (4/20) was another dark and gloomy day in Edmonds, but the birds came out anyway.

A marsh wren was gathering nest material at the marsh....


.... as was a song sparrow.


A sub-adult bald eagle flew over Sunset Ave......


..... while a female house sparrow perched in the thistles below.


A juvie bald eagle made several fly-bys over town throughout the day. Juvies can pretty much kick back and take it easy for their first three years until they mature and must start worrying about mates and territories.

 

[Bill Anderson]

There was lots of avian action at the marsh on Sunday (4/21). Lots of birds were busy in the cattails, either looking for nesting material or looking for something to eat.

Bushtit.


Song sparrow.


Marsh wren.


Common yellow throat. It may common, but this was the first one I have seen.


Black-capped chickadee. Look closely and you can see a grub in its bill that it pulled out of the cattail.

 

[Bill Anderson]

The evil minions of the Dark Lord gave chase to raptors flying over the marsh airspace.

Crow chasing a juvie bald eagle.




Crows chasing a red-tailed hawk which they had been strafing while it was perched in the raptor tree at the fish hatchery grounds.




Wesley gave chase to bugs flying off the #1 viewing platform.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Like adults, many juvenile bald eagles look alike. It is hard to tell exactly how many regularly fly over town unless several appear at the same time. That is what happened Tuesday afternoon (4/23), when my son and I saw three juvies chasing each other and sparring above Pt. Edwards while we were down at the #2 viewing platform of the marsh. At one point a fourth eagle, possibly one of the Pt. Edwards adults, could be seen circling in the distance.

Juvie tag team aerial wrestling.


We drove up to Pt. Edwards and saw two of the juvies resting on the flat-topped spar.


One flew away......


...... followed a few minutes later by the other.


One of the Pt. Edwards adults was perched on its family tree a little to the south.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Some photos from Thursday (5/2), which started out sunny and clouded over in the afternoon.
All photos: 5D Mk III + 100-400L telephoto zoom, handheld.

I started out at the marsh. When the sun was out, heat waves over the mud made photographing with a telephoto lens difficult.

Male green-winged teal.


Two black-bellied plovers, a lifer for me. I don't know how often they visit the marsh. One of my bird books says they are not common in urban areas. Another said it is unusual to see them this far south in mating plumage, as they have usually migrated farther north toward their breeding grounds above the Arctic Circle by now. As I am fond of saying, birds seldom read bird books or calendars.


One was in full mating plumage.


While the other was still in transition.


A yellow rumped warbler perched above the #3 viewing platform as I was photographing the black-bellied plovers.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Sandpipers landed at the marsh while I was photographing the plovers. I have a great deal of difficulty identifying sandpipers, even with the help of the shorebird book that Terry bought me.


Juvie eagle flyover. There are at least three juvies in the area. This one is easy to recognize by its missing feathers.


I relocated to the waterfront in the afternoon.

Sanderlings.


Belted kingfisher.


Caspian tern.


The Caspian terns are one of my favorite birds. They and the osprey pick up the slack in the summer after the winter migrants have returned north.

 

[Terry O]

Great to see the variety, Bill...

 

[Bill Anderson]

Saturday morning I upgraded the firmware of my 5D Mk III so that the autofocus still functions with my 100-400L zoom at f/8.0 after I add a 1.4 teleconverter. After that was done, I drove done to the marsh for a test flight. I suspected something was up, for shortly after I arrived the crows began raising a ruckus at the west end of the marsh beyond the low south hedge/tree line. I looked for the usual suspects (hawks and eagles), but saw none.

I first spotted this coyote from the #3 viewing platform. These are not very good photos, as I was shooting from the marsh walkway south into the sun. The heat waves radiating up from the mud played **** with the auto focus and distorted the photos. It was the first time I have shot a coyote in the marsh. My previous shots were on the nearby Pt. Edwards walkway (3-7-11) and Unocal grounds (1-3-13).




It is the same coyote I photographed in January as evidenced by its bare tail. Do I dare name it "Baldy"?


I suspect it is also the same coyote I photographed in 2011 by the way it flattens its ears as it walks (or do all coyotes do that?).


I pointed the coyote out to some young school girls and their mother who were on the walkway. They said they were from Vancouver, WA and were singing in a choir that was visiting Edmonds. They told me the coyote jumped up like it had captured something as I took this photo.


I'll wait for better lighting conditions before rendering a final verdict on the coupling of a 1.4 teleconverter with the 100-400L zoom. If the combo will give me sharp photos, it amounts to having a 560mm handheld, walk-around telephoto lens when the light is decent.

 

[Terry O]

Looks like it is working, Bill!

 

[Bill Anderson]

Wednesday (5/8) the three Yost Park owl hunters (Terry, Young Dave, and I) were at the #1 (far west) viewing platform of the marsh when two Canada geese debuted their four goslings. With the Unocal coyote on the ground and the Pt. Edwards eagles in the air, the goslings are in a dangerous world. It will be interesting to follow their development this spring.

5D Mk III + 100-400L telephoto zoom, handheld

 

[Terry O]

It was so much fun to see them emerge from the grass of the marsh. Great captures, Bill!

 

[Bill Anderson]

Thursday afternoon (5/9) my son Daren and I walked to Pine Ridge Park at the end of our court to look for the owl I heard hooting at 12:30 that morning. We did not see an owl, but we saw many other interesting things including a varied thrush, a Douglas's squirrel, and two pileated woodpeckers.

The highlight was an active hairy woodpecker burrow. The burrow is high up on a sloped hillside, but easily visible with no interfering trees. Both parents were hunting food nearby and making runs to the burrow. All photos were taken handheld with the 5D Mk III + 100-400L zoom. I'll have to take the extender next time.

Female


Female




Male. The red patch on the back of its neck is not visible in this photo. I chose the photo because I like the action of the wood chips flying.


Female

 

[Bill Anderson]

More photos from a different angle. The male's red patch is visible in these photos.

You can just see baby's head in the burrow.




The baby barely pokes it head out of the burrow.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Friday (5/10) was a three woodpecker day, four if you count flickers (which we don't), for Terry and me.

Yost Park
Red-breasted sapsucker


Pine Ridge Park
Female hairy woodpecker.


Male hairy woodpecker.


Male pileated woodpecker.




Two pileated woodpeckers got into a fight about four feet from Terry. There was no way he could photograph avian action that close with his 400L telephoto lens.