Archive For The “Kitamaat Village” Category
A juvenile bald eagle prepares for take off at the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
Portrait of a juvenile bald eagle at Kitamaat Village, March 10, 2019. (Robin Rowland)
The juvenile bald eagle just after take off, March 10, 2019. (Robin Rowland)
A flock of Barrow’s golden eyes hug the shore off Kitamaat Village. (Robin Rowland)
A crow caws on a snag at low tide at Kitamaat Village, March 10, 2019. (Robin Rowland)
A song sparrow on stump on the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
Storm clouds over Douglas Channel, March 10, 2019. (Robin Rowland)
A crescent moon sets over the mountains of Kitimat, with “earthlight” from our home planet illuminating the sphere, March 8,2019. (Robin Rowland)
A seagull hunts for oolicahn on the Skeena River, March 6, 2019. (Robin Rowland)
Shots from the November shore bird survey.
A Western grebe off the Maggie Point gazebo. (Robin Rowland)
Common mergansers off Maggie Point. (Robin Rowland)
We spotted gulls in a feeding frenzy off the Kitamaat Village soccer field. (Robin Rowland)
Another shot of the feeding frenzy. (Robin Rowland)
Detail of the feeding frenzy in the above shot. (Robin Rowland)
Common loons off Kitamaat Village (Robin Rowland)
A flock of starlings off Kitamaat Village. (Robin Rowland)
A song sparrow off at Kitamaat Village. (Robin Rowland)
A red neck grebe off Maggie Point (Robin Rowland)
Shortly after I shot the crows chasing the juvenile bald eagle, on the drive home, I stopped at an old dock. I clearly could hear a bird, probably a sparrow, but wasn’t sure where it was. It was low tide and then I spotted the bird in a small “cave” created in the sea grass when the tide went out.
It’s a large song sparrow. The blue/grey tones are what I was with my eyes and the images are correctly white balanced. It may be the large, grey Alaska variant of the song sparrow which are more common farther north than the north coast of British Columbia, but the expert opinion I consulted was divided, with some saying it was the “merilli/montana” subspecies that is also found in the BC and US interior. Problem is that in most, there is a lot more brown than grey.
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.
