6, 7, 8July

 6 July

eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S143748207

weather:  9:30 am 19C wind 8 kph,  12:30 pm 23 C wind 12 kph, haze

tide:  11am, 2.5m, falling

7 July

eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S143833676 

weather:  10:00 am 19C wind ENE 8, 12:30 pm 20C wind E10, hazy, high cloud

tide:  11:00 am 3.1 m,  falling

8 July:  No data

6 July

A late start on a hazy morning.  Warm, but not excessively so.  I got lazy and drove to the Shelly Road parking area and then walked the usual circuit in reverse.  The forest is in its full summer glory.  


The river looks as though it has recovered from the bank collapse, but with no rain forecast, it's really hard to know what will happen to it.  I'm thinking the salmon may have to grow legs in order to get to their spawning areas.  


At mid-tide, the estuarine marsh is turning to gold.





The light was almost autumnal, probably due to smoke from fires up-Island.


The ocean spray is already turning golden,


and my seasonal marker stand of bitter cherry is starting to turn to autumn colours.


There are lots of dragonflies in the fields to the west of the forest.  This is a common white-tail.


Common, indeed, they were abundant, but I think they're rather elegant.

A juvenile willow flycatcher hopped along with me as I left for the parking lot.


7 July

Another late morning--I can't bring myself to wear jeans to protect myself against the overgrown path into the trailhead on these hot mornings.  So once again, I drove to the Shelly Road carpark, wearing shorts.

The path to the river looks dry, but still green.


The bracken fern is a refuge for pacific wrens, singing energetically.


The sky still looks more like autumn than summer.   

Mid-tide, and falling, but at this season few waterfowl.  I thought I heard a flight of shorebirds but couldn't spot them.






Haze is obscuring the Gulf Islands and Coast Range.


I'm still puzzled at the presence of a second juvenile eagle in the cottonwood by the river.  Either the hatches were really widely spaced or this one managed to survive, somehow, after his sibling hatched and fledged at least ten days ago.  Usually a much younger sib doesn't survive in this situation.


 
But here he is, starting to flap his wings preparatory to his first flight.

8 July

Not a Englishman River day, but I have a second nest to monitor near my home.  Today the two eaglets had fledged and were sitting in trees near their nest, the adults flow off as I watched, and a murder of crows harassed the kids.



Young ig doesn't look terribly alarmed...


And his sib is getting a shriek in:



I'm quite sure this youngster is saying something on the order of "You and what ten other guys?"


And this is a "if looks could kill..."

Tough kids, these eaglets.  










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