Red Knots Galore!

In the half dozen or more times I have visited Gray's Harbor, near Westport, WA during the spring shorebird migration, I have never observed or photographed a Red Knot. So while I don't usually have target birds when I visit an area, I was determined this year to find and photograph this species because it is one of the few remaining shorebirds that is missing from my bird image library.

I arrived at one of the better locations for shorebirds - Bottle Beach - about 2 hours before high tide. Migration was apparently mostly over for the year as my May 13 arrival date was on the late side. As I arrived at the beach, there was a couple of birders sitting on some driftwood and I engaged them in conversation for a few minutes. They, too, were looking specifically for Red Knot and had not seen any from their vantage point. There was a photographer positioned out near the water's edge near a series of old pilings that was a favorite site for taking shorebird images. I walked to the east of him about a hundred yards before positioning myself to view the shorebirds that were feeding mostly along the water/shoreline interface. SUCCESS!! Scattered amongst the numerous flocks of shorebirds - mostly Dunlins and Western Sandpipers - were literally hundreds of Red Knots. In the ensuing 90 minutes or so, I proceeded to fill the entire 8GB flash card in my camera with shorebird images, focusing mostly on Red Knots. Of course, in my haste to get out on to the beach, I had forgotten to take extra cards with me! Here are some of the results. The Red Knots pretty much stand out in a crowd - sitting or flying as you can see in the following shots. I was also fortunate enough to get images of a banded/tagged Red Knot that had been captured about 3-4 years previously in Baja California.

The Black-bellied Plovers in their tuxedo-like breeding plumage are even easier to spot.This Dunlin is not quite in full breeding plumage yet!Western Sandpipers are among my favorites, especially when they decide to rest for a while.In Montana, almost all of the Dowitchers we see are Long-billed. But the Gray's harbor shorebird migration provides the opportunity to view both Long- and Short-billed Dowitchers, although the latter, such as the following, predominate. The shorebird migration thru this area is one of of those great spectacles of nature that I never tire of watching. I shall return to Bottle Beach!

Sandhill Crane Nest Success!

For the past 3 years, and possibly longer, a pair of Sandhill Cranes has been nesting in almost exactly the same location on a small cattail wetland near Helena. Nest success in 2008 was unknown since I was not able to monitor it after I first discovered it. But last year, there were 2 "colts" hatched and reared in the area for at least a month before they disappeared or moved. This year, I first located the nest site with incubating adult on April 16, and checked again periodically to follow the status of the nesting attempt.

On Monday of this week, as I viewed the adult attending the nest, I noticed that she seemed to be sitting differently than when I have viewed her at other times while she was incubating. So I looked again on Tuesday, and there was a young crane standing in front of her as she remained on the nest. Since I was not carrying my camera at the time, something that rarely occurs, I raced back to my vehicle to retrieve camera and tripod in hopes that the young one would still be present when I returned. And lucky for me, both the adult and young remained on the nest. Now the young "colt", as young cranes are named, was climbing over the back of the adult and obtaining good photo images was difficult. So I located a good hiding place and waited for the colt to reappear. I could see occasional movement on the back of the adult where the colt was apparently enclosed by the adult's feathers. After about 30 minutes, the colt reappeared and climbed up on its mother's back, and I was able to get some photo images. Then the adult decided to stand up, but she stayed on the nest and seemed to be readjusting some of the nesting material while doting on her youngster. Apparently, my location was far enough away that she did not seem to be especially disturbed by my presence. For this, I felt very fortunate because cranes seem to be quite vigilant and wary of intruders, and I certainly did not want to disturb this nesting effort in any way. The next day, Wednesday, I returned to again take a look. The birds were now gone from the nesting area, but I soon located them, now with the other adult pair member in attendance. They were a hundred yards or more away along another pond and headed toward a nearby grassy area to do some feeding. And even at this distance, one member of the pair stayed with the colt while the other came toward me in a defensive action. Not wanting to disturb them, I vacated the area. As I was leaving, a red fox ran up over the dike and disappeared in a nearby gravel pit area. No young colt for breakfast today!!

First Anniversary

It was one year ago today that I began writing these periodic blogs. This was an experiment on my part to see if it was something that I would enjoy and that it served my intended purpose - a convenient way to write, share, and preserve my thoughts in electronic diary form. For the first 3 months, I was quite diligent, posting a new blog about twice a week. With the newness wearing off after that and summertime activities competing for time, my productivity declined to the range of 3 to 4 entries per month. This was of some concern to me because in my experience with other blogs, if they weren't active on at least a weekly basis, my interest in following them waned. But there had to be some sort of balance here between that concern and my available time for getting photos and coming up with new topics. About one new blog per week or 10 days seems to be where I'm most comfortable, and where I don't have to force myself to prepare something that doesn't amount to much. For you faithful followers out there, I hope this is satisfactory and that the relatively low frequency is enough to maintain your interest.

The one aspect of this effort that I am especially pleased with is the relative ease of retrieving older blogs when the desire or need arises. Hand written trip/travel diaries I have kept fairly faithfully in the past have a way of disappearing into desk drawers or under piles of documents where they are difficult to find. I am looking forward to using this blog "vehicle" as my diary for upcoming trips, as I did with the Ecuador series. In some instances, these will be "after the fact" entries because of a lack of internet access or not traveling with a computer. But they will still serve my purposes.

It is a cold and somewhat snowy day here in Helena again, so not much new to publish in the way of photo images. But here are a few that I took on a similar day in mid-April, when there were lots of birds using my feeders. Nothing especially fancy here, but handsome birds none the less!

House finches like this male are the most common visitors to my feeders. But this winter, especially in March and April, Dark-eyed Juncos were unusually common, with perhaps 30 or more present each day during one peak period. The Slate-colored variety(below) are usually the most common here during winter, but early spring juncos this year were dominated by the Oregon variety.