Iona Beach Regional Park
I always look forward to Iona, even though the birds are very hit and miss. Still, the scenery can’t be beat, and there’s always the faint hope of Yellow-headed Blackbirds, or various rarities. Plus Barn Owls, since they have a damn big bird house behind the little ponds, but I’ve never not once seen hide nor feather of them.
And as we make our way behind the ponds, we see this.
This classic view, of the Fraser looking west. Quiet and still and free of boats of any kinds.
And this classic, uh, barge? Filled with classic wood chips. It seems there are always different combinations of barges on this spot, but you’ll almost always find at least one with the wood chips.
Two Common Merganser gals hanging out on one of the little beaches on the North Jetty. I wanted to get closer while looking as harmless as possible, but then one lazily got in the water. She didn’t seem particularly nervous and didn’t go far, and the other was all whatevs, but I took that as my cue to stop.
Maybe if I’d crawled on my belly on the wet sand they’d have reacted differently?
Back near the parking lot, a Bald Eagle up in a tree!
Richmond Nature House
On the way back, I suggested swinging by the Nature House, in the hopes we could shoot adorable birbs by the feeders. Alas, the feeders were empty! No birbs were present for shooting… but we did see this handsome one from the parking lot. Merlin tagged it as a Swainson’s Hawk, but an actual live bird expert ID’d it as an immature Red-tailed Hawk. It looks like tails aren’t so red in youngsters.
Piper Spit
Winter migrants are still out in force, including Lesser Scaups…
Okay Mallards aren’t migrants
I know that, on paper, coots aren’t migrants in the PNW, but they really do seem to disappear from these parts in the spring and summer. I suspect they probably just scatter into the interior, looking for more remote parts to raise their horrible muppet children?
This Green-winged Teal is probably just coming out of taking a little drink, but this still reminds me of their habit of coming through mud. Maybe they do a little filter feeding on the side?
For some reason I have better luck photographing female scaups than males. Maybe it’s the higher contrast on the dudes that leads to photos being either too dark or washed out, and it’s really a skill issue?
Could be. Anyway, here’s a male Lesser Scaup!
Now we get to the stars of the day! There were a couple of Buffleheads present, and they got unusually close to the pier, allowing me to take some of my best photos yet. Look at this adorable little lady!
But, and I don’t want to sound sexist here, it’s the males that really grab my camera’s attention. Look at the soft white bodies, their adorable little eyes and bills, and especially their gorgeous facial iridescence. It looks like the colours don’t 100% depend on the angle of the light, since there seems to be a sharp line between the purple of his cap and the green-blue of his brow. Then again, that’s only showing up in the last photo, so I dunno. Let’s not analyse, and just drink in the beauty.
