This year our trip to my friend’s family’s beach house compound was not as fruitful with bird pictures as I would have liked. That said, I did get a few good pics and learned about a new (to me) creature that lives in the area. First off, the star of the show this year was an osprey…
This beautiful bird would come into the bay with the rising tide and hunt for fish as they returned with the tide change.
Hovering over fish, she would then drop in and try to grab it with those huge talons.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see her catch anything this time.
I saw less terns this year than previous years. While I did see a few diving for fish, the only ones I caught were just hanging out with gulls at the shoreline resting before their next hunt.
The resident eagle couple was pretty scarce this trip. I caught a glimpse of both flying, trying to scare the osprey when they thought she had caught a fish but the only opportunity I got to get a picture was when one of them went to a neighbor’s house to be fed. In WA it is illegal to feed or attract eagles but these people leave food for the local birds and they have become accustomed to showing up daily for the hand outs. When they see me approaching with my large camera, they scare him off thinking I am with the fish and wildlife department. This neighbor teen was either oblivious to the eagle on the fence or is so used to it he didn’t really care.
One of my favorite birds to take pictures of in this area is the oyster catcher. I have covered them in a previous Bird Droppings and only saw one lonely one this year. I tried to get close for a good picture but the bird was very shy and kept walking away. Then my daughter told me she had an app to imitate bird calls. She played one for the oyster catcher & I immediately got the side eye. The bird then made a loud counter call and took off, flying circles around us!
We kept seeing the bird as we continued to explore and it seemed to be following us but from a safe distance. The most interesting thing I saw though was not a bird at all. One of the residence of the compound is a science teacher and he said “do you want to go see giant moon snails?” I looked at my environmental science major daughter as she looked at me and we both said “hell yeah!” We had no idea what they were but just the name, how could you say no? Well, they are not the easiest thing to find but you see evidence that they are there everywhere. They leave an egg-filled sand collar all over the tidal flats that looks like what happens when your tire falls apart in the street due to heat.
The females make these out of sand and mucous. We finally found a few of them, they bury themselves in the sand to prevent being caught by predators but are not the fastest at this process.
These snails are actually carnivorous and eat clams. It gets on top of a clam and can take 4 days to drill into the clam to eat the clam. It produces hydrochloric acid to dissolve the shell and liquefy the clam’s insides.
We put it back and buried it to prevent it from becoming someone else’s dinner but with the amount of egg collars we saw, I don’t think they are too endangered. You can learn more about our moon snails in Puget Sound here.
Ospreys are beautiful birds. Back when I use to spend time in Florida I loved watching them. The Oystercatcher is very cool. But the star of the show is the snail. That’s a big gastropod! Coincidentally tomorrow’s Coffee Break is about snails. 🙂
Awesome, can’t wait! I had never seen anything like that snail, just enormous.
My daughter does a lot of snail work. I’m going to send her this. 🙂
I love the photo of the indifferent dude. I’m betting the law is mostly aimed at discouraging people from feeding bears, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been complaints about raptors snatching a neighbor’s pet. Or maybe vultures being drawn to deer carcasses being sloppily cleaned.
That is probably where it started but they don’t want any animal to become dependent on humans that it will alter their ability to hunt or find food on their own. Eagles are lazy hunters and will take the easiest route to food which can cause for some bad interactions with humans. In Seattle they have a dump that is so filled with eagles and then they shit and drop garbage all over the surrounding areas. People that don’t care about wildlife get pissed and will end up killing a bird to prevent them from doing it.
https://newsforkids.net/articles/2019/04/07/eagles-drop-trash-on-landfill-neighbors/
Yikes!
When motivated they are NOT to be fucked with. Last year at this same location we saw one of these resident eagles snatch a seagull out of the air, carry it to a channel marker and rip it apart as it’s friends tried to save it by dive bombing. I’ve been told of them doing the same to a great blue heron which is larger than an eagle but much lighter.
Also, they have been training eagles to take down drones in some places…
OT… I took down the jungle growing in my backyard. Thanks to being sick every weekend I was off (for four miserable weeks and having CoVID), the backyard became a tangled mess. FYI I cut the front because that was all the energy I had and because I am not a complete shithead.
It only took me an hour and 1/2, but I did it. My lawn is pretty much an environmental one as I don’t fertilize or water my lawn (my back yard gets enough runoff from my back neighbour anyway) nor do I kill weeds except the really obnoxious ones.
Compared to the putting green backyards of most of my neighbours it looks like a fucking disaster.
i had to.
Birds, snails, yadda yadda yadda. I can’t get over that first photo of the waterfront real estate. Do your friend’s family own that large house on the left? Would they care to take in a slightly disabled live-in chef for a week or two?
The four houses to the left of it are the family members I hang out with. The giant house is a distant cousin that only stays there a few days a year. You could probably squat in it for most of the year and they would never know. The guy is a tech millionaire but friendly enough and not too snotty.
Thanks for the invite! Sea-Tac, here I come. I have never been anywhere near that region so when I confirm my flight plans I will contact you and need driving directions to give to my Uber driver, assuming the airport allows them. (Just joking. I have no plans to do any of this.)
@matthewcrawley Better yet, I’ll pick you up! In exchange, you must use your white man privilege to shield me from the police if we get caught on our squatcation.
…I’ve seen an osprey stoop for its supper & it is a wonder to behold
…as ever, lovely pictures…even if I am late getting around to looking at them