[obol] Yaquina Bay Birds Today

[Cindy Ashy]

Sallys Bend mid to low tide today (mid-afternoon):

4 well camouflaged killdeer foraging on the west side calling each time they
took short flights to new patches of mudflat without Zostera japonica...as the
tide receded and the meandering "stream" from the culvert was revealed all 4
flew to this area and seemed to have great fun taking baths.

The high count for egrets was 11, far fewer than I saw last weekend. 

I watched a kingfisher dive fishing and once thrashing a fish it had caught
against a rock repeatedly....I assuming to kill the fish...or break it up a bit
so it's easier to swallow? Last Sat in the same area, I watched 2 kingfishers
in a fishing turf war rolling and tussling around mid-air..quite a sight.

South Jetty, first finger (late afternoon - early evening):

Cormorants occupied the distal end of the finger. 

11 brown pelicans, all adult, occupied the middle of the finger when at rest
but for about an hour actively dive bombed for fish which is always fun to
watch, especially with they do so in unison....synchronized dive fishing.
They'd fly about watching the water for fish, usually a couple of circles, then
hover, do this little jig thing in mid-air re-orienting their body so their
long pointed beak was facing straight toward the water and then zoom down
stabbing the water...sometimes they'd still have their heads under water while
floating...then they'd throw their heads back to flip the fish from their sac
into their throat. The sun was very bright and backlit the sac so well I could
see every blood vessel and it clearly revealed the fish which were about the
length of a human finger. It got me thinking about how important the angle of
sun must be to birds that hunt fish by sight...and in fact, as the sun angle
changed, I noticed the pelicans were less successful at capturing fish....and
finally left.

I can see why Heermann gulls follow pelicans around...often when the pelicans
flung their heads back to flip the fish from the pouch to their throats, they'd
loose a fish....flying out for the gull to capture. There were many juvenille
heermann gulls around today and they followed the pelicans closely...if the
pelican flew, the heermann gull follow it and land just beside the pelican. By
the way, I think these were the same birds I was calling jaegers the other
day....saw them much closer today and studied them with guides (thank you Randy
for pointing out this likely possibility).

There were still many red-necked phalaropes around, today on both sides of the
finger...one flock of 10 zip zagged around in the air for so long I thought
they'd never land...kept flying high toward the bridge and every time I thought
they'd cross, they'd turn around and fly back....it was at least 20 minutes
back and forth before they finally landed on the water.

Also saw a couple of papa murre/chick pairs.

Cindy Ashy





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