River S Unit – Page 22

Treed

While driving past Bower Slough I came upon a family of river otters that were fishing and preening and playing. After a while a family of raccoons came meandering down the shoreline but they bolted for the trees when the otters saw them. After the otters circled the trees for a while they moved on and eventually the raccoons descended back to the ground. This one initially got caught behind some wire mesh that had been put around the base of the tree to protect it from beavers, but it climbed back up past the mesh and hopped into an adjacent tree and then to the ground.

Yellow-rump (Myrtle)

A yellow-rumped warbler (Myrtle) gets pelted by the rain on a spring afternoon.

Yellow-rump (Audubon’s)

A yellow-rumped warbler pauses at the edge of South Quigley Lake on a spring afternoon.

Preening

A great blue heron preens its neck feathers by running them through the tip of its bill.

Song of the Blackbird

A male red-winged blackbird sings at the edge of the marsh on a winter morning. This section of South Quigley Lake is lined with cattails where the blackbirds sing (and in the spring, raise their young).

Self-portrait

Late in 2012, I used the pupil of a cooperative red-tailed hawk to take a self-portrait in my new car. To avoid spooking it, I setup the camera before I drove up, adding a 36mm extension tube to my telephoto and extender to make sure I could focus even up close.

The Small Diver

Bufflehead are one of our smallest ducks and fairly shy so it’s always a treat when they swim in close. This male swam across the smooth surface of Rest Lake with his tail splayed flat, as a diving duck he can use his tail to push down against the surface of the water when he dives either in search of food or to flee from one of the resident bald eagles.

Juvenile Attention

A juvenile great blue heron hunts in the meadow beside Bull Lake late on a sunny Christmas afternoon, one of the last shots I took after spending all day at the refuge. Initially it was farther off but as I sat quietly in the car (with the car shut off) it came quite close as it listened for voles moving beneath the grass.

Rest Lake

On a sunny Christmas afternoon, an adult great blue heron hunts for voles along the edge of Rest Lake while tundra swans swim near the far shoreline.

Closely Monitored

This doe is part of the first wave of Columbian white-tailed deer that were brought to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in 2013 with the goal of establishing a permanent herd at the refuge. A second wave is planned for 2014 and a third in 2015 if needed. That’s her fawn behind her, the first generation of Columbian whitetails born at the refuge. I wasn’t going to put this image up as the dark blobs from the out-of-focus teasel are a bit distracting, but I like how clearly it shows her radio collar and ear tags and how closely monitored her movements are.