Union Bay Natural Area, Seattle 5/10 & 5/11

I went to the Union Bay Natural Area both Thursday and Friday. Both were beautiful days out, so there was lots of bird activity. One of the primary shrubs there was snowberry and baldhip rose in there as well, but in the wet Union Bay Area habitat there were many willows, soe growing out of the shallows of ponds in the Natural Area, but it was difficult to identify many of them due to their similarities. The grass was starting to get tall, and was probably between knee and waist height. The previous weekend I had seen lupines almost fully bloomed, but in an area right by a pond we found a lupine that had not begun to bloom at all, and its flowering structure was entirely green, sort of resembling shape and form of the top of a cat tail, with none of the buds beginning to open up yet. However, this was a different type of lupine that I had seen previously, as its leaves were larger, and were in compounds with about ten leaflets rather than around seven like the other ones I had seen. We walked up to the edge of Lake Washington to see a male and a female mallard floating in the reeds right by the shore. We were able to get very close, and the female was feeding on the surface, or "dabbling" for about five minutes while we watched, dipping her head and upper body under water and paddling with her feet to stay below the surface. The male was just observing and floating. In the same area the net day, a Great Blue Heron landed on a small island right next to us, probably fifteen to twenty feet away. It stood very still, most likely waiting for prey to come by, before I startled it while taking a picture and it squawked an flew away. We also saw other birds out as well, like a bunch of barn swallows flying around by one of the ponds, and I could hear chickadees out by their "chicka dee-dee-dee" call. We also saw a red-winged blackbird perched on the top of a cat tail by Lake Washington. Aso, in the little bay area to the right of the boat house I observed what appeared to be a cormorant. Initially it sort of resembled a heron from far away because I saw the long neck, but it became clear that it wasn't once I looked in the binoculars . It had short legs, was all black,and had a hooked beak that was orange a little on the sides with sort of green eyes. I also saw a couple robins out as well as many other small birds flying around I could not identify.
Species List:
baldhip rose
snowberry
american robin
great blue heron
barn swallow
mallards
cormorant
cascara
red winged blackbird
willows
lupine
paper birch
scotch broom
cat tails
canada geese
horse tails
chickadees
douglas's hawthorne
himalayan blackberry
hybrid bluebell

Julkaistu kesäkuu 4, 2012 06:42 IP. käyttäjältä drwlyons