Sunday Birds and Sunset

Snow this morning, overcast through much of the day. Partial clearing this evening. Calm when I first went out, but the wind picked up a bit.

I noticed some gusty winds later this evening.


The channel was quiet in front of UAS. Few birds were near the shore. I did count over 160 Long-tailed Ducks down towards North Pacific Seafoods.


What gulls were around were loosely gathered down that way as well.


Near the emergency room entrance to SEARHC, I noticed a flock of Pine Siskins flying over. I saw one larger bird in the mix. At first I wondered if it was a larger finch. I kept my eye on it when it separated from the flock and flew towards a cluster of spruce trees. When I got a better look, I saw it was a Northern Shrike. Presumably it’s the same one that has been around through the fall and early winter.

On a walk around Japonski Island with Kitty, we did find two Brown Creepers, but overall things were fairly quiet bird-wise. Calm winds when we started picked up by the end, and it felt pretty chilly to me.

Two Ring-necked Ducks and some Mallards were still in the small opening at the inflow to Swan Lake. It looked like the coot might have been there as well. It kind of looked dead, but then I thought maybe it was just sleeping. [Update – I went back the next day and it was in the same place frozen in the ice, so it was dead]


This afternoon the clouds broke at an opportune time for a nice sunset. I didn’t really have a chance to get to an optimal location to document it. I did take pictures from Sea Mart parking lot while I was there.

Just four of us showed up at ultimate this evening. We played box again. Occasional wind gusts made things a little trickier.

My iNaturalist Observations for Today

Leave a Reply