7 APRIL, 2019 - M/V So...fea DECK LOG - DUCKS-DUCKS-NON-DUCKS PART TWO;
More of the same base weather day after day, unlike up in town, down here on the waterfront we have only a 5 degree AM/PM temperature spread (the result of our water surround), with a light rain every night 2200 to 0600, Friday and Saturday added in wild n' windy winter rain gale weather till noon, then cloudy no wind for hours at a time . . . . wind-waves, and rolly all night.
Both, here in the West Basin Harbor, and when we were at Windy Cove So...fea's panoramic "water everywhere" view allows us to see things fly-in, land, swim by and around us, dive, eat-rest awhile then fly away . . . (fish, seals, otters, wading diving birds and shorebirds of all types)... in addition to the "Big" easy to see birds that wade here, we have many smaller diving "duck-things", and oddities that appear. (some are nocturnal)
Some, we just hear... and then have to go look for, like the Loons and Petrals, but many are silent swimming "whatizzits" that we see only once . . . they require research to identify, and surprisingly very few of them are an actual "Duck".
Used to Minnesota, we really enjoy our resident Loon family that has been here the past two years, their unique voice is mostly nocturnal, this year the Grebes showed up? and have been here a long while, the Least Grebe is super tiny (fat-robin size) and looks like a tailless baby duck, all of them have wild red eyes.
Our non web-footed Shorebirds include the avocets, oystercatchers, phalaropes, plovers, sandpipers, stilts, snipes, turnstones, wrens, Kildeer, Martins, and Swallows that come back every Spring, these too, all have many confusing varieties and types to sort out and identify, (we even have a resident under-dock Wood Pecker family as well.)
Oregon Woodpecker
"TRUE" Ducks abound here, many are migrating on their way to somewhere else, but we get to see them sometimes for just a few days visit, there are over 250 types and classifications of "ducks", with many many look-alikes, after looking them up online, we realized many of these birds we call "duck"s are not ducks at all, there are so many variations of Duck, it would be impossible to show them all, so, we have mounted those that we have actually "seen" here in Oregon.
An interesting note is that a great many of the "Diving Ducks" cannot walk on shore, they can only fly or dive, which is why you only see them in the water.
Oregon-Alaskan Puffin
flatbill
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Some, we just hear... and then have to go look for, like the Loons and Petrals, but many are silent swimming "whatizzits" that we see only once . . . they require research to identify, and surprisingly very few of them are an actual "Duck".
Loon
Red Necked Loon
Petrels look like floating doves
Used to Minnesota, we really enjoy our resident Loon family that has been here the past two years, their unique voice is mostly nocturnal, this year the Grebes showed up? and have been here a long while, the Least Grebe is super tiny (fat-robin size) and looks like a tailless baby duck, all of them have wild red eyes.
Grebe
Least Grebe
Eared Grebe
Coot
(Although they spend most of their time "in" the water, not all of the wading birds (Herons, Cranes, etc. have "Chicken feet", the Coot and Grebe have non-webbed lobbed feet)
 |
| Grebe feet |
 |
| Coot feet |
Common Barn Swallow
Snipe
Kildeer
Plover
Avocet
Stilt
Oystercatcher
Turnstone
"TRUE" Ducks abound here, many are migrating on their way to somewhere else, but we get to see them sometimes for just a few days visit, there are over 250 types and classifications of "ducks", with many many look-alikes, after looking them up online, we realized many of these birds we call "duck"s are not ducks at all, there are so many variations of Duck, it would be impossible to show them all, so, we have mounted those that we have actually "seen" here in Oregon.
An interesting note is that a great many of the "Diving Ducks" cannot walk on shore, they can only fly or dive, which is why you only see them in the water.
Harlequin
Bufflehead
Auklet
Mallard
CanvasbackCayuga
Falcated
Goldeneye
Gallinule
Gadwall
Pacific Tufted Puffin
Oregon-Alaskan Puffin
King Puffin
Mandarin
Merganser
Pintail
Pacific Loon
Redhead
Ringneck
Ruddy
Surf Scoter
Scaup
There are a few birds I could not find to identify, some of these are not native here in the Northwest, and must be migrating to their seasonal roosts, so, we only see them one day and they are gone.