mostly birds...

What's for lunch today?

Posted by Douglas Brown , Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:39 PM

What was supposed to be a mostly sunny day turned out to be a photographic nightmare. High overcast skies, and a bird list that was like none other.
The clearest spots I saw looked like over the Boundary Bay area, so I headed out to check the dikes and dike roads.
Eagles were everywhere as well as the harriers.
I decided I wanted to see if  the Kestrel was around, so I went looking.
About to give up and go to Blackie Spit I looked on a overhead powerline and saw the Kestrel.
Sitting there awhile watching it flew off, and I thought it was gone, so I drove off.
But....it had swooped down and got a mouse and went back to a closer wire to chow down.
The lightin was terrible but i took numerous shots just in case.
Here is lunch today.

After watching this I decided to leave, and drove by some fence posts, and spotted a short eared owl about 50 feet away, and what could have been a monumental photo, turned out underexposed because of such dark conditions.
The list for today seen, not all photographed

• Kestrel Falcon
• Short Eared Owl
• Approx 40 Eagles
• Golden Eagle
• Harriers
• 4 Cooper's Hawks
• Sharp Shinned Hawk
• Red Tailed Hawk
• Northern Shrike

This was just among the raptors.
The usual juncos and sparrows around, plus more than usual red winged blackbirds for the area.