Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
I love watching the diving ducks on Horse Lake, like this female scaup starting her dive to search for food under the water. She pushes forward with her flattened tail on the surface of the water and her webbed feet below and breaks the surface of the water with her beak, her body soon to follow. It’s absolute poetry and I’ll never tire of watching it.
This is the tail end (literally) of a female lesser scaup diving head first under the water, water spilling off of her flattened tail in the back and splashing away in front from where her beak broke the surface tension of the water.
A close look at the face of a western painted turtle enjoying a spring afternoon in the Pacific Northwest.
Even when not in their prettiest plumage, shovelers are fun to watch.
Male shovelers transition through several different plumages in a year. According to my Sibley guide, this male’s plumage would typically be on display during the summer, but I took this picture on Christmas day. The males have lovely green heads in their breeding plumage, but in this look resemble the females in many ways.
A juvenile great blue heron hunts for voles in a meadow on a Christmas afternoon. The direct light of the setting sun was now blocked by the distant hills so I took a few pictures in the fading light before heading for home. I had photographed this heron before and spent about 15 minutes with it on this occasion, so it felt comfortable enough to turn its back to me even at such a close distance.
A juvenile great blue heron hunts in the last throes of direct sunlight on a Christmas afternoon.
A red-legged frog emerges from Bower Slough still partially covered in duckweed.
My favorite creature in the Pacific Northwest is the rough-skinned newt. I used to see them frequently at the places I hiked when we lived further south in Oregon, this one is from 2002 at William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge near Corvallis.
A dark-eyed junco visits the dogwood next to the bird feeders in our backyard. She is a female of the Oregon race.
Boolie 