Category: Port Orchard

Although the sun spent all last Friday ducking behind clouds, it was a little brighter than it was at Theler when I got to Port Orchard. I was greeted by this female Hooded Merganser

as I walked down the ramp into the marina.

Unfortunately it wasn’t very birdy and the sunshine didn’t last much beyond this first shot. The dominant bird was the over-photographed Grebes I’ve featured lately.

I spent most of my time trying to get better shots of the Male Hooded Mergansers. A few years ago I would have been thrilled by the shots I got, but now that I’ve gotten spoiled, this was the only shot I even kept,

mainly because the shrimp in its beak shows just how small these birds really are. I get so used to seeing the bird through a telephoto lens or blown up on a computer that I forget just how small a Hooded Merganser really is. Plus, I learned that they don’t dine exclusively on small fish.

When the sun finally came out last Thursday I thought of trying to get to Theler Wetlands and Port Orchard, but since we had a dinner date for 5:00 near there I thought I’d go to Pt Defiance first and Port Orchard later. Luckily, I got some great shots at Pt Defiance because things didn’t turn out nearly as well at Port Orchard.

I got there around 1:30 and did manage to get the best shot I have ever gotten of a male White-Winged Scoter, a bird I’ve never seen in the marina before.

At first I thought I might get some other great shots because there were more birds than usual and because the light was great. I did manage to get a couple of other shots I liked like this one of a male Barrow’s Goldeneye

and this one of a Horned Grebe swallowing a fish that seemed much too large for it to eat

before the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. By the time I got to the end of the dock, a maximum of fifteen minutes, the sun had disappeared and even on the highest ISO settings I could get nothing but shadows.

Did I mention 38° can seem awfully cold on the Puget Sound if there’s no sunshine? I ended up driving home before our dinner date because I couldn’t imagine having to spend two hours sitting in the car waiting.

December 5th’s visit to Port Orchard wasn’t nearly as exciting as the week before, perhaps because I was able to get so many shots I liked the week before. Basically, I saw the same birds both times, and it was hard to improve on the shots from the week before.

I did like this shot of a Pelagic Cormorant because it leaves no doubt that the bird has a green sheen when seen in full sunlight

and because it is one of the few times I’ve managed to ever get a shot of those unique feet.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to improve on last week’s shot of the male Hooded Merganser,

but this shot does a nice job of balancing the black and white areas, one of the hardest things to in a bird photograph.

I also noticed that the small band of male Mergansers seems to be splintering, that some of the males have begun to pair off.

There did, however, seem to be an increase in the number of Barrow’s Goldeneyes this week

with a number of small flocks throughout the marina. As I said, if the week before hadn’t been so spectacular I would have been quite pleased with these shots.