I'm not entirely sure why the Terns do this, I guess it's a form of pair bonding. One bird will fly to a high altitude while being chased from below by a second bird, presumably of the opposite sex. There was a small Tern colony in the lake this year and so the birds were busy fishing and chasing one another while taking care of young ones at the time these shots were taken. Courtship would have ended by this time since birds had already paired off.
One of the first images of Ruddy Turnstones from this Summer. There will probably be several more to follow.
While I didn't plan it, it seems I happened on a Piping Plover nest the day the chicks emerged from the eggs. That is the second time in the last 3 or 4 years that that has happened to me. I generally keep my distance with this species but if they come to me I'm going to take the opportunity for a few photos. I debated whether to post these but decided in the end that I would, it wouldn't change the fact that I took the photos and other people might enjoy seeing them other than myself.
In mid to late July Whimbrels could be routinely found in large numbers near the end of West Head. They were there mainly to feed on the abundant crowberries. These days it's more typical to see one or two rather than the flocks of 30-40 that could be found there earlier. Most of these images were taken on a single day, one group shot at an earlier date and one single shot taken later.
I took these in mid July, my first outing this year to find Godwits. I have photographed them several times since these were taken. Some better flight shots from this past weekend. I'll post them at a later date.
Repeat that title 3 times fast. One of the Lockeport nesting pair from the one day I was on the beach this year on a mission to identify a dead bird that had washed up.
This parent Spotted Sandpiper didn't want me in the area with a bunch of young chicks running around. That was mostly why I was able to get close. After finding the chicks I let them be, I had already photographed some this year at another location.
It allowed me to get this image late one evening as the sun was going down.
Whimbrels are always one of my target species in early Summer. They are extremely wary and therefore hard to approach without a certain amount of stealth involved. I had a little luck this year but I'm still striving for that close-up portrait. Here are a couple flight shots.
As I stated in the last post I went back the following day to, hopefully, get better images of Pectoral Sandpipers. There was still at least one in the area but I didn't succeed in getting close to it. I thought if I waited patiently it might come to me. I didn't see it again. When the other shorebirds jumped from the pond I was at I went looking for another location with birds. I didn't find a better spot and the clouds had moved in but as I'm waking out of the marsh I see something I wasn't expecting. Maybe I should have expected it since there were lots of tracks on the beach. But as I'm looking over I see three coyotes looking back at me.
I decided it might be a good time to depart the marsh but it's a good 200 yards to where I left my backpack. I make it back and realize I dropped something on the way out and have to go back to find it. This time I'm taking a stick for protection. 99 percent of the time coyotes will turn and run when they see a human and so as I'm going back in the marsh one coyote does just that. There is only one left at this point but he's still watching me as I walk toward it. Eventually he turns and joins the others and I don't see them again. I've been back a couple times since and although I saw a lot of tracks the first time, the past weekend there were none. I'm thinking they might have had a passing interest in some of the shorebirds I was trying to photograph.
I've spent a lot of my time photographing shorebirds in the last month or so. I generally don't expect to find Pectoral Sandpipers early in the season. This was the third week of July so I guess it's not surprising that this bird was an adult. Maybe the first adult I've photographed. The Juveniles come later which is true for all the shorebirds and for Pectorals they come in greater numbers so are not hard to find.
They say that Pectorals resemble a large Least Sandpiper. Well here is a good comparison in the second photo, the Pectora being the much larger of the two. There were at least two individuals on this day. I did attempt to photograph them on a second day but I encountered something I wasn't expecting. More on that in the next post.
I believe this is the same bird in both photos. Both were shot at the same location but days apart. There was another adult male Common Yellowthroat in the same area but he was missing all his tail feathers so not hard to tell one from the other. I have shots of the other one as well but I'll not post them out of respect until he gets a new tail.
It's been awhile since I've posted anything. I guess it's time to start making up for that. It's not that I haven't taken any images, on the contrary, I've been so busy taking photos I've barely been able to keep up with the processing. Here is one from back in June. I have a feeling these birds might have been displaced by the recent wildfires. They should have been tending to young ones at the time but there was no indication they had nested at this location.
