While it was still 2025

Last morning of the year, on the estuary. Just birds, the mallards sleeping while the tide is high, the rest busy diving for eats.

Mallards and green-winged teals.

A female mallard. The rumpled water is where a teal just went under to grab a bite.

Another sleepy mallard.

Buffleheads. Active divers after anything that moves underwater.

In the distance, a pair of cormorants, fishing. They spent as much or more time underwater as on the surface. And a little Goldeneye; she will roll over stones underwater to find her prey.

One more post in the offing for 2025, then, finally, 2026, with today's skies and elk.

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Fue la última mañana del año 2025; en el estuario, las aves acuáticas se ocupaban según sus costumbres; los patos ánades durmiendo durante la marea alta, las demás buscando su desayuno sumergido.

1. Ánades reales y Cercetas comunes.
2. Una ánade real hembra. el agua agitada es donde una cerceta se acaba de sumergir buscando algún invertebrado acuático o un bocado de hierba.
3. Otra ánade real dormida.
4. Porrones coronados. Buceadores muy activos; comen cualquier cosa que se mueve debajo del agua.
5. Y algo lejos, una pareja de cormoranes pescando. Pasaban tanto tiempo sumergidos que en la superficie. Y una pequeña Porrón hembra (Bucephala sp.); estos pájaros buceadores voltean piedritas en el fondo, buscando invertebrados.

Me queda un grupo de fotos de 2025, y luego, por fin, empiezo el año 2026 con vistas del cielo de hoy y algunos alces.

Specks on the water

The tide was high, and the tidal lagoon at Oyster Bay was full of birds. Near the shore where I stood, a flock of pintails and wigeons, the pintails up-ending themselves in search of underwater goodies. On the far side of the purple martin nest poles, empty now in the winter, mallards. Against the light, I could see them as blotches, with specks of green; their showy heads. On the sand of the leg now enclosing the lagoon, barely visible as running specks, peeps, probably sandpipers. Beyond that, more mallards and a white dusting of gulls. And then, over the snowy shore, a flight of ducks, speeding Vs against the clouds.

All that I saw, but the camera saw the warm brown heads and the feather patterns of nearby pintails, which my eyes couldn't quite make out.

Pintail females. Plain heads, intricately patterned bodies.

A couple of males. Anas acuta; the name, acuta, as well as the English name, pintail, refers to the  long, pointed tail of the breeding males.

The nearest corner of the lagoon. Mostly pintails in this group.

And I counted 9 eagles on the way home. I probably missed some; I do have to keep an eye on the road.

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A marea alta, la laguna mareal de Oyster Bay se llenó de pájaros. Cerca del dique de donde yo les observaba, una bandada de ánades rabudos, Anas acuta, con algunos silbones americanos, los rabudos parándose de cabeza en busca de bocadillos bajo el agua. Al otro lado de los postes con nidos para golondrinas purpúreas (vacíos ahora en invierno), ánades reales: contra la luz, los veía como formas oscuras con manchas verdes, sus cabezas brillantes. Sobre la arena de la lengua de tierra que ahora casi encierra la laguna, apenas visibles, puntitos en movimiento; aves playeras, probablemente Calidris sp. Más allá, otros ánades reales, y una salpicadura blanca de gaviotas. Luego, la tierra bajo nieve y en el cielo un vuelo de patos haciendo Vs contra las nubes.

Todo eso vi, pero la cámara además vió las cabezas de color café y el plumaje de los rabudos cercanos, lo que mis ojos no alcanzaban a descifrar.

1. Dos hembras.
2. Dos machos. El nombre científico, A. acuta, se refiere a la cola larga, puntiaguda de los machos en la temporada de apareamiento.
3. La esquina más cercana de la laguna. Principalmente eran ánades rabudos en este grupo.

Y camino a casa conté 9 águilas. Se me habrán escapado algunos; no hay que dejar de mirar la carretera.

High water at Oyster Bay

After the swan count this morning, I stopped by Oyster Bay to look at ducks. Last week, there was a flock of about four to five hundred; mixed mallards and wigeons, plus a variety of little peeps dashing about the tide flats, eating what looked and smelled like rotting muck. Delicious!

This week, the tide was higher than I ever remember seeing it here, and the breakwater that surrounds the lagoon and the tide flats was almost completely covered. A few birds still waited there for the water to recede.

Wigeons in flight, disturbed by my presence on the path above.

They make trails in the water as they leave.

At the tip of the remaining breakwater. Wigeons, pintails, mallards, peeps and a crow.

And one Canada goose.

What duck is this?

After a week of rain, the sun finally chased away the clouds. Beach day! At Centennial Beach, the tide was out past the border marker and still retreating; kids flew kites and dug enormous holes, adults toasted themselves on the sand or walked and walked and walked; so did we.

But first, we stopped at the duck pond to watch 9 baby ducklings learning to dive. While we took far too many photos to sort in one evening, a pair of oddball ducks arrived to sit on the banks.

Drab ducks, at first sight. I thought they were both females, until I looked closer.

They match the descriptions of gadwalls in my guides, but not the photos. And the male has a few extra decorations.

Medium-sized, rather plain dabbling duck with white belly, steep forehead, yellow feet, white patch in speculum. MALE: Mostly plain, variegated grey with back plumes, puffy head shape, dark bill, black rump, undertail ... (Description from Birds of Southwestern British Columbia.)

The Audubon field guide adds, "... only duck with white speculum having black outer and inner margins. Breeding plumage of male is gray with contrasting black stern and brown forewing. Female ... yellowish bill; has white speculum like male.

From Cornell's All About Birds, I learn that, "No other dabbling duck has a small square white patch at base of wings. All other dabblers that have a black rear end have white just in front of it." And, "white patch on wing, may be hidden."

The male. White belly, black rear end, brown forewing, back plumes, variegated grey. In descriptions but not on duck; steep forhead; this one is more sloped, like a mallard's. Not in descriptions; dark bill has yellow edges. Brown patch on forewing has three white spots. Blotchy ring pattern around neck. The neck seems longer than any of the photos in the three guides.

The pair, showing white speculums.

So we're not sure of this one; is the male a mallard/gadwall hybrid? Those mallards do make life difficult!

The gadwall does not appear in my Birds of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, although the other guides include the Delta in their range.

Tomorrow; those 9 ducklings.