Boom

eaglet

Finally saw a peep of the first baby eagle this morning on the nest cam. Like a fluffy little easter chick with a deadly weapon stuck to its face. eek.

Having never seen nest behavior, it looks remarkably like the parent is smothering the chick. Obviously needs to keep it (and the other eggs) warm up on such a windy perch, but I can't help but wonder how the little guy manages to breathe.

 

duck!

It's been months since I saw a new duck. We went off to Seward Park today--I love that park--and it was so damn windy we were nearly blown to Oregon on the south side of the spit. Just as we were rounding the bend (hello, mergansers, hello, golden eyes, hello buffleheads, cheers, nice to see you all), Mr. Built-In Binoculars spots an odd duck. It's the Ring Neck Duck, and I hadn't seen one before.

_{(photo from Tom Munson, Idaho Fish&Game)}
Supposedly there is a barely-visible brown ring around the male's neck. Didn't have my binoculars, and it was splashy enough it'd have been hard to see it anyway, but it's one of those bird names that makes me wonder. Why not something along the lines of "big-ass white line on the bill duck"?

In other bird news: bald eagles are plotting a takeover*. They are everywhere lately--I've seen them every time I've left the house for the last week, from downtown to Seward Park, and even in the industrial wasteland that is Georgetown.
_{*By this, I mean "at 35-50% of their population when Lewis&Clark were out here," if I'm doing the math right from the link above. Can you imagine if, say, bison were at that number? Or salmon? Or black bears? Or the Olympia oyster? It seems remarkable to me. They were disappearing. They now feel commonplace.}

vlad the impaler

Yesterday afternoon, I bore witness to what sure looked like hummingbird sex. Except it probably wasn't.

Apparently, hummingbirds don't get it on while flying, and these two were both stuck together and flying. What I saw was not a courtship dive--it was very clearly two birds, both hummingbirds (and probably both Anna's, they're the ones that I see every day)--and Bird #1 basically appeared to have the beak of Bird #2 strapped to its back; the pointy end would disappear and reappear around Bird #2 armpit (wingpit?) depending on the angle. They zoomed and fluttered and buzzed off--still stuck together--across the street, over the tops of the buildings. I was sure I was seeing bird sex, sure to the point of simply checking online to offer proof of what I saw for a link here. Stupid internet.

Whatever was going on , it was nothing like the typical territorial freakout. Those, I see every day, for more than a decade. In this house, three birds typically share/fight over our feeder; one of them hangs out and hollers a lot most of the day (every day), one stops by many times each day but is a bottom and doesn't mind being chased off, and one darts in and zooms off just once or twice a day. The two regular visitors have little fussbudgety encounters probably once an hour; the degree of anger changes seemingly with the weather (colder weather = more calories burned to stay alive = mellower birds). They follow a pattern, including particular sounds and motions. This had different noises--faster, trillier, all one kind of note rather than the typical one long/many short.

The most striking thing about the visuals: how on earth were they staying airborne? One hummingbird is unlikely enough. Two, seemingly stuck together, looked impossible. And there were certainly more lurches and drops than usual, like tiny, pointy-beaked clowns practicing midair pratfalls.

My New Favorite Bird

I have a certain admiration for pigeons, in the same way I have a certain admiration for humans. There seems much that is similar about us as species, except pigeons are perhaps not so driven by John Locke's suggestions of happiness.

At the Puyallup Fair on Friday--more accurately, stumbling around the Puyallup Fair in an odd daze of crap food and utter distraction--I found the Open Class Pigeon show. There aren't that many--certainly not in comparison with show hens and roosters--but the ones that were on show were generally spectacular. One of them won my heart.

It's the Old German Owl Pigeon.

It's Hello Kitty as a real animal.

It's the Scottish Fold of birding.

It wears a lacy neckerchief.

It's Katherine Hepburn doing a pratfall.

I swooned like a parlor roller.

It's impossible to suspect it of being up to no good.

She could filled with heroin and trained as a jewel thief and nobody would ever believe it.

Look again at that oversized pupil and the tiny beak. She'll haunt your dreams.

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Thanks to pigeoncote.com for allowing me to determine the name of my new beloved, and for supplying the photo and leading me to find the standard of perfection in this bird: