Archive For The “eagle” Category
Went out for the monthly shore bird count this morning in the midst of the Polar Vortex hitting the west coast.About -8 C with a cold wind off Douglas Channel which probably made it even colder than airport windchill of -15. Even the birds, it seems, were huddling some place hidden for warmth.
A bald eagle hovers over Douglas Channel at sunrise. (Robin Rowland)
Ice on a snag (an old log) at the Kitamaat Village waterfront looks like alien invaders. (Robin Rowland)
Sunrise over Douglas Channel on an icy Sunday morning. (Robin Rowland)
Trumpeter swans, signets and canvasback ducks in the Kitimat River estuary, Dec.15, 2018. (Robin Rowland)
My portion of the Christmas Bird Count in the Kitimat River Estuary (courtesy Rio Tinto) was in an afternoon blizzard which cut visibility by up to about 80 per cent at times and was no help to the cameras, whether or on auto focus or manual.
A killdeer hunts for food on a patch of wetland grass as the tide rises (Robin Rowland)
A rare sighting of a Wilson’s snipe out in the open on the river estuary. (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle overhead. (Robin Rowland)
Another shot of the killdeer. (Robin Rowland)
Another shot of the Wilson’s snipe. (Robin Rowland)
The Wilson’s snipe getting a last shot at a meal as the tide rises. (Robin Rowland)
The trumpeter swans, signets, canvasbacks and mallards. (Robin Rowland)
A great blue heron huddles against the snow storm. (Robin Rowland)
Another great blue heron. (Robin Rowland)
A loon in the choppy waves of Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
There were more crows than usual Sunday morning at the Kitamaat Village waterfront. Crows perching on old driftwood roots….
…or in the air along the shore line.
Suddenly all the crows took to the air….that murder of crows (or as one of the other birders said “it looks like two murders”).
It was soon clear that they were mobbing a juvenile bald eagle.
The eagle escaped the crows. And we saw it about 20 minutes later, a little further away over the mouth of Whatl Creek at MK Bay, flying over some gulls skimming the water.
On Thursday, April 19, was a soggy, to say the least, with wind-driven, cold, pouring rain when I went down to Kitamaat Village and Kitimat harbour to photograph the spring bird migration. The highlight were the snow geese I saw both at MK Bay (above) and at the Kitamaat Village soccer field. (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle, drenched in the pouring rain, at the mouth of Whatl Creek near MK Bay Marina. (Robin Rowland)
A crow takes off from the sea grass in pouring rain near Kitamaat Village. (Robin Rowland)
Snow geese feed at the Kitamaat Village soccer field (Robin Rowland)
A snow goose at the Kitamaat Village soccer field. (Robin Rowland)
Snow geese fly past MK Bay. (Robin Rowland)
An Oregon junco on the waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
Mallards take to the wing as a bald eagle passes overhead (Robin Rowland)
A gull passes two bald eagles in the low tide puddles of Whatl Creek near Kitimat Harbour (Robin Rowland)
Two bald eagles in the low tide puddles of Whatl Creek near Kitimat Harbour (Robin Rowland)
Raindrops fall on the head of an American robin who posed on a log beside my car just as I was getting ready to leave. (Robin Rowland)
Two bald eagles battle over a duck at Kitimat harbour. Images taken off the shoreline of Kitamaat Village.
A bald eagle flies over Kitimat harbour (Robin Rowland)
(Robin Rowland)
Another bald eagle watching from above. (Robin Rowland)
Splash! The first eagle swoops down and grabs a duck (hard to see in this image) (Robin Rowland)
The second eagle heads skyward with its eye on the first (Robin Rowland)
The first eagle is heading away with his catch (Robin Rowland)
The second eagle swoops down to attack. (Robin Rowland)
But the attack is unsuccessful and the first eagle escapes with its meal still in its talons. (Robin Rowland)
Fly past. A bald eagle passes some mallard ducks in flight over Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A flock of mallards fly over Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A “murder of crows” fly toward Kitamaat Village from the Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A crow comes in for landing on the shores of Kitamaat Village. (Robin Rowland)
The beach at Kitamaat Village as the tide begins to recede with the sun shining on the fog in Kitmat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A pair of bald eagles find perches on a old snag on the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
A sparrow hides in the long grass and wildflowers in the Kitamaat Village seawall (Robin Rowland)
A pair of bald eagles perch on an old log at Wahtl Creek overlooking Douglas Channel as mallards fly by. Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017 (Robin Rowland)
Wahtl Creek flows past Kitamaat Village, home of the Haisla Nation, into MK Bay on Douglas Channel, across from Kitimat’s Rio Tinto BC Operations aluminum smelter.
You wouldn’t know it’s the end of February, except for nip in the morning air. After fellow photographer Doug Keech posted on Facebook that on Saturday morning, low tide would coincide with sunrise, I decided to go out with my gear. One thing you have to realize is that the Photographers’ Ephemeris gives sunrise at sea level, so it takes (depending on the season) about 45 minutes to an hour for the sun to rise above the mountains. That meant when I arrived 8:30 am, the tide was already rising and a (minor) snow storm was being blown by inflow winds up Douglas Channel. There were lots of birds doing their Saturday morning grocery shopping (probably for herring)
Looking across Wahtl Creek down Douglas Channel, Feb. 25, 2017 (Robin Rowland)
Crows on ice… the seaweed and seagrass are fed by the fresh water of Wahtl Creek, hence the thin layer of ice. (Robin Rowland)
Mallards in Douglas Channel. (Robin Rowland)
A female Barrow’s Goldeneye hunts for food in Wahtl Creek. (Robin Rowland)
Water drips from the bill of the Barrow’s Goldeneye after it grabbed a meal from Wahtl Creek (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle skims just above the surface of Douglas Channel in Kitimat harbour (Robin Rowland)
The eagle has landed. (Robin Rowland)
The bald eagle perches on the old stump (Robin Rowland)
The mallards head out into the Channel as the tide comes in (Robin Rowland)