Birds

Thumbnail image for Derelict Nets & Entangled Birds

Derelict Nets & Entangled Birds

October 19, 2011 Bay Flotsam

Note: All gulls pictured in this post, and other trapped birds were freed from the netting. Follow Up on 10/21/11: I phoned today and learned that an official went out to this net, confirmed what we saw in terms of bird entanglement, and holes in the net have apparently been fixed as a temporary measure, [...]

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Pelagic Family, On the Rocks

October 10, 2011 Baby Animals

We passed this Pelagic Cormorant family (Phalacrocorax pelagicus) on one of the few isolated nesting spots near Vancouver Island (British Columbia). We were told that in the 1990s, rampant shoreline development eliminated important habitat for the cormorants. This rock island was one of a few ecological reserves the B.C. government set aside for the cormorants’ [...]

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Barring the Hat

September 4, 2011 Animal Behavior

My first wild encounter with a Barred Owl in Seattle culminated in the photo below. Based on this experience, my advice to children in raptor territory is: avoid wearing plush toy animals on your backpack as the dusk hunting hour approaches. A boy was walking along a wooded path with his mother, a fuzzy toy [...]

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Teaching the Kids to Forage

August 30, 2011 Animal Behavior

Juvenile gulls are as determined to get free food from their parents– as their parents are to wean them from the freebies. I’ve seen many adult gulls swimming or flapping away from their begging youngsters, forcing the juvies to forage on their own. I haven’t often watched a parent gull patiently teach the babies to [...]

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Thumbnail image for If a Heron Had Written “Your Song” …

If a Heron Had Written “Your Song” …

August 24, 2011 Herons and Egrets

Hugh and I watched two herons dance around the idea of landing on this roof, skirting the aerial chaos of gulls along Alki Beach. One finally planted its feet on the A-frame, while the other lurked in a tree above. Looking at the pic, Hugh started singing the lyric from Elton John’s Your Song … [...]

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Thumbnail image for Climbing the [Salmon] Ladder to Success

Climbing the [Salmon] Ladder to Success

August 10, 2011 Birds

Images taken at Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, aka Ballard Locks, in Seattle Washington. Summer means salmon runs at the Ballard Locks fish ladder . . . twenty-one watery steps from Puget Sound, to the ship canal, to the fresh water spawning grounds where the returning salmon were born. Salmon are a miracle of navigational skills, [...]

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Things I’d Never Seen ….

July 30, 2011 Animal Behavior

As little as I’ve been out in the field with my camera lately (relative to how it used to be), I’ve had a disproportionate number of firsts in terms of wildlife viewings. Some of it is my change of environment and the newness of Seattle and its wild offspring. And some of it is, well [...]

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Quark in Flux …

July 26, 2011 Birds

I was surprised and dismayed when I saw that my last post to the Quark was on July 6. I’ve always told my friends that the condition of my home seems to mirror the condition of my life and my psyche. And, it appears the condition of my blog suggests the same. Since relocating to [...]

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And Osprey Makes Two

July 6, 2011 Animal Behavior

So far, that’s all I’ve seen at this nesting site . . . two diligent Osprey, bringing each other fish and taking turns sitting. The structure of the cell phone tower obscures the interior of the nest, so I see only what happens on the rafters outside. To date, it’s been just a male and [...]

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Eagle & Crow

June 21, 2011 Animal Behavior

There’s no lack of courage among the black birds. (Exhibit B: the eagle/crow face off I photographed last October.) I joke that Bald Eagles in Seattle are never without a personal entourage, usually crows and gulls. In this particular altercation, a Red-winged Blackbird joined the squadron as the eagle flew over Union Bay Natural Area [...]

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Cleaning House

June 10, 2011 Animal Behavior

Much-maligned but still loved by me, a European Starling makes the drop: grubs for breakfast, in the door; baby droppings out the door. The parent carries the nestlings’ waste out through the portal, drops it in the shrubs nearby, then forages again in the grass for the babies’ next meal of insects. Because Starlings, en [...]

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Thumbnail image for The Turns of Terns

The Turns of Terns

June 6, 2011 Animal Behavior

I’ve described terns, with their distinct calls, as aerial barflies with too much whiskey and smoke on the voice box. Each tern is raspy in its own way, and Caspian Terns have a sharp croak that pierces the air over my balcony. They’re huddled on a warehouse rooftop one minute, hundreds of them, blurred by [...]

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Thumbnail image for Anthropomorphizing a Caspian-Peregrine Tussle

Anthropomorphizing a Caspian-Peregrine Tussle

June 3, 2011 Gulls & Terns

I’ve been grabbing Seattle’s ever-so-fleeting sun breaks to photograph a group of Caspian Terns who fish every evening on Puget Sound. I’ll post those shots soon. As I was packing up my tripod tonight, I saw the telltale movement and wing shape of a Peregrine overhead. She was riding the thermals up and out of [...]

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The One I Couldn’t Help

May 16, 2011 Bay Flotsam

It was one of those anomalous sunny days in the midst of Seattle downpours. A Flickr friend of mine told me about a tugboat race on Elliott Bay, so I thought I’d walk the Terminal 91 bike path to the water. The “path” is an industrial slog — a cement slough leading to Puget Sound, [...]

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No Dropped Calls

May 11, 2011 Animal Behavior

This Osprey doesn’t have to worry about mobile phone dead zones at home — nesting, as he is, at the top of a cell tower. Osprey love the tall platforms of human invention, but the settings can take their toll, too — in the form of power outages, or even electrical harm to the birds. [...]

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Under a Watchful Eye

May 8, 2011 Baby Animals

Happy Mother’s Day! Canada Goose parent and goslings, photographed at Lake Union in Seattle, Washington.

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Kingfisher of the New Wave

April 3, 2011 Birds

photos ©ingridtaylar – email me for permissions Big-haired, 80s-style, Belted Kingfisher — on a windy day in Des Moines, Washington. Kingfishers are famously elusive when they see a lens pointed at them. This girl had good fishing prospects at the Des Moines Marina, so she put up with me for the sake of her prime [...]

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Thumbnail image for Les Mouettes Aimes Les Petits Pains

Les Mouettes Aimes Les Petits Pains

March 31, 2011 Birds

photos ©ingridtaylar – email me for permissions mouette = from Middle French mouette = from Old French moette = diminutive of Old French maoe (Anglo-Norman mave, mauve) = from Old English mǣw (“seagull”) = from Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”) Someone challenged these gulls with leftovers from the patisserie. If a gull can swallow a starfish, [...]

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Thumbnail image for Anatomy of a Cormorant Landing

Anatomy of a Cormorant Landing

March 25, 2011 Animal Behavior

Double-crested Cormorant – Phalacrocorax auritus. Photographed with my Olympus E-3 and Zuiko 70-300mm. The birds were silhouetted in late afternoon light, high ISO 1000, some post-processing NR to compensate for the darker conditions.. I shot this series along the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle. If you’ve watched Double-crested Cormorants [literally] coming home to roost, [...]

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A Great Blue Yawn

March 23, 2011 Herons and Egrets

I watched this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) preening and relaxing for a half hour or so. At the very end of our “visit,” he yawned and held the pose for just a few seconds. I snapped this shot. A bird yawn always takes me back to the chaotic year of looking after two rescued [...]

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