Out By the Shore

A trip to the shore to see what birds we might see there seemed in order. It is also interesting to note that from Sequim we can see the San Juan Islands and, on a relatively clear day, Victoria Island as well. Above is one of the San Juans.

On the near shore, we find bits of color as the flowers in the marshy areas bloom. There is even the orange thread-like stuff that I think is some sort of fungus growing on the grass. There are patches of this all over the place.

And in one of his brief stops, I caught this Belted Kingfisher between meals.

The star of the day is, however, the Bald Eagle. We happened on an active nest and mom was here tending to her babies.

It is really hard to make out, but there are two young birds in the nest. This will become clear below. In the nest photo, we see the back of mom's head and it appear that perhaps her head has been underwater recently (makes sense if she is hunting). With my anthropomorphising hat on, it looks like a mother that is being driven to the limits of her endurance and has here sweaty hair pushed back so she can do what needs to be done.

One of the fledglings is stretching his wings .

Here, we can see the wings on one of the young birds and the head of the other.

Mom has come back from another hunting foray. You'll notice that she has surprised another birds that has just taken off above her head.

And so we leave this happy family to enjoy the day with mom nestled in the nest with her children.