Spotted Sandpipers are migratory shorebirds. They spend winters in the southern US and Mexico and breed from Alaska to New Mexico and to the east coast of the US and Canada. I often see them in the summer near mountain lakes and streams where they nest and raise their young. This is the second year I’ve observed them at this lake and the first time I’ve seen them perched in conifers. They are darned cute birds, bobbing their tails up and down and they have cute calls too.
Have you ever seen a Virginia Rail? They are secretive birds, living in marshes with thick vegetation. They nest near the water’s surface, often in cattails. I have often heard them but seldom seen them. Last week I was lucky enough to hear them at a shallow lake from the road adjacent to it. I waited and soon I saw two fuzzy black youngsters and two adults. The adults were busy, darting back and forth, gathering food for the little ones. Most of the time, they shooed the babies back into the cattails. It looked like a full time job!
Some images from late July and August too. If you can ID the young flycatcher, let me know.
The girls and I and our friends, Beth and Fern, went to our favorite camping place in the Okanogan Highlands last week and had a fun time despite lots of rain. One day, it rained for five straight hours, not just a light rain, but hard rain where you don’t even want to consider going outside. The trailer stayed dry inside, well, maybe it was damp from wet dogs and people and condensation but we were more or less dry. All that rain is good for wildflowers and green growing things. We did manage to do quite a bit of walking and birding and botanizing. And we read books. One day, we sat under a tree with a big canopy and stayed dry while it rained and hailed and then the birds came to us.
As you might expect at a place like Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, there were birds. Lots of kinds of birds. Most of them were not close enough for photos but I did manage to see nearly eighty species. My favorite birdwatching was right in my campsite. I saw four kinds of warblers in the trees and shrubs over the creek and Cinnamon Teals drifted by pretty continuously. Willow particularly enjoyed watching the teals. Is it because she is the same color as the male? There was a Great-horned Owl nest in the campground. It was in a particularly large and dense juniper tree and the owls were nearly impossible to photograph. Many people stopped to look at them.
My Everyday Photos 