Photos by Donna

I am truly amazed and thankful over and over again when I think how fortunate I am to get to enjoy such a variety of birds from my ‘backyard’ from my third floor balcony overlooking Marshy Creek, Prospect Bay, and Kent Narrows and within the community.  To my OC community neighbors, keep your eyes opened and binoculars and cameras always ready to check out what’s visiting!  With my busy schedule, I really only have an hour or so in the mornings at sunrise and an hour if I’m lucky before sunset to stand on my balcony to watch and photograph.  Here’s the variety I’ve seen these past few weeks in that short time span each day without really trying!  Note, the early morning and evening hours usually afford you more sightings when birds are out and about flying and feeding.

And now onto the birds!  I’ll start with some Scaup shots.  I really tried to research and properly identify which type of Scaup they were, Greater or Lesser, both are so close in looks.  I decided they were Lesser Scaup by their head shape and ‘greyer’ feathers, but someone please correct me if I’m wrong!

Canada Geese hung around for several days in the cove alongside us, trying to stay out of the winds we were experiencing.

A regular off and on are the American Coots.

Here’s someone who kept flying by me begging for a snack or a photo op.  He got the op!

This next fella was not interested in a photo op, once he saw me, he moved away from the berm and quickly swam to a safer distance to dive and feed.

Out on the water, large rafts of ducks appear as they fly in to meet up with others.  Life is safer in numbers!

For two days I saw six Tundra Swan also hanging around.  This pair were really photogenic even on a cloudy day when the snow showers were beginning.

Our House Finch residents are always happily flying around, sometimes they like to watch me photograph other birds.  It’s always a challenge to spin around and catch a shot of them before they take off.  Got both the Mr & Mrs this time!

With so many Mallard Ducks around all year round, I tend to not photograph them often.  With the temps in the upper teens early one morning, I watched these curled up sleepers on the berm under the osprey platform.  On the rocks are barnacles.

My next two birds are newbies for me and neither are the best of shots, but I had to show them!  🙂

Finally, I cannot do a post of bird photos without sharing at least a few of our daily visitor now for several months, our Great Blue Heron.  🙂

Additional recently visiting birds not shown here but are here at Oyster Cove are Buffleheads, Ruddy Ducks, Surf Scoters, a Belted Kingfisher and the mesmerizing American Bald Eagle.  Yes OC neighbors, we have eagles in the skies more regularly now.  I watched early Sunday morning six of them flying over Marshy Creek, two pairs trying to steal a fish from a female eagle sitting on the ice.  I’ve yet to go thru the numerous shots I took to see how good any might be, the distant they were at and the frigid temps were a bummer for my lens.  Hopefully some are good enough to show some action fight shots in my next post.

Whew!  What a bunch of photos, sorry about the long post!   It proves to me I need to post more often.  So a BIG thank you for taking the time to stop by and view my post, I hope you had a cup of coffee or tea to enjoy during your visit!  🙂