Birds of Prey at Ridgefield NWR

This picture is one of the rare times I was glad it was raining while I was out taking pictures. The ice gave a diffuse reflection, and I knew a little bit of rain would smooth out the surface, allowing both the icy look and a stronger reflection. I had to work quickly though, as the rain would soon melt the ice entirely and the eagles would disappear with it.

Bald eagles don’t start off their lives with their famous white heads, it’s as if the white slowly moves through their bodies from year to year until reaching its final destination in the head and tail.

With the eagle standing on the ice you can get a good look at the large sharp claws in its talons. I arrived shortly after the eagles first started dining on the nutria so I don’t know if one of the eagles made a kill or if they were scavenging a nutria that had died during the unusually cold night.

On top of that, atmospheric effects can further degrade the image. Plus, with an effective aperture of f/8, I lose the ability to autofocus. The end result is that it’s much more difficult to use a 2X converter than a 1.4X converter.

Difficult, but not impossible. This adult bald eagle was captured with the lens resting on a beanbag on my car window. The sky was mostly cloudy — regular clouds and not the storm clouds that are my favorite skies — but still a beautiful bird.

If you compare the plumage of the second year to the first year (the picture below) and a full adult (the picture above), you can see that year two eagles still lack the white head that gives the eagles their name, but have a diffuse spreading of white on the back that isn’t present in their first year. It’s as if the white starts to spread as the eagle grows older until it eventually coalesces in the head and tail after four years.

The adult eagles at Ridgefield are rather territorial so its rare to see more than a couple of adults, but they are much more tolerant of the juveniles. They tolerate the younger birds since even though the youngsters are competitors for food, there’s plenty of food at the refuge — it’s competition for mates that gets the adults worked up, and the younger birds aren’t much competition in that arena.

This juvenile eagle at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge was likely not Stephen Jr. given the lack of an identifying wing tag, but it is about the same age. It takes bald eagles four years to get their distinctive white caps — in their first year, they are nearly all brown like the juvenile shown here. Several young eagles have been hanging out quite visibly at the refuge lately, one a week or so ago had just captured an American coot and devoured it in a tree right above me.

This eagle was perched on a branch of a tall tree, spreading its wings out in the gentle breeze. It almost seemed like it was pretending it was flying, and I wondered how long it would take it to remember that it really could fly. I’ve seen eagles spread out like this to dry their wings, so perhaps it had taken a dip in the water.

You can track the movement of Stephen Jr. by visiting The Institute for Wildlife Studies and selecting the date of interest. Stephen Jr.’s official designation is Eagle A-46 and you can find more truthiness about him here.

This female northern harrier was sitting in the large meadow at the end of the auto tour. I’ve never gotten harrier pictures I’ve been happy with, she was a ways off so I put the 2X teleconverter on my biggest lens and hoped for the best. She’s all puffed out in the cold, so she looks a little larger than she is, and you can see the ring around her face that helps give harriers an owlish look.

It was a day full of red-wings and red-tails and rough-legs and ruddies. And even some birds that don’t begin with ‘r’, like eagles and herons and song sparrows and harriers and four meadowlarks (Oregon’s state bird, which I hadn’t seen in years). The sky was heavily overcast and didn’t make for the best backdrop for this juvenile red-tailed hawk, but it was still fun to see so this hunter up close. The dried blood on its bill is a sober reminder that it wasn’t such a good day for some little critter at the refuge.

Thankfully not only did I get my blue sky, but she was waiting on a sign post near the road. There was little traffic at the refuge at that hour, so I had the chance to watch her for some time. She eventually let out a large yawn in the beautiful morning light, and I was very lucky that she turned back towards the sun when she yawned so that the sun illuminated her mouth.

I laughed to myself that perhaps I wasn’t the only one who thought it was awfully early in the morning to be out and about.

Was. Which one this was.

Seen on the wing, it's easy to mistake a short-eared owl for the more commonly seen northern harrier. Harriers look a little owlish in the face, and they hunt with similar styles and for similar prey.

I finally ID'ed my first short ear in the last days of 2006. It was late in the evening and I was finishing up the auto tour and about to head home when a short ear flew in front of me with a rodent in its talons. It landed beside the road and seemed to disappear in the brush. I relocated it but it soon took flight again to get farther from the road.

My next visit to the refuge produced more owls, they were sitting on some of the signs on the auto tour in between their forays into the large fields to hunt. The light wasn't the best as you can see from the skies, but it was fun to be able to see these hunters from such a close vantage point.

And up close like this, there's no confusion between owl or harrier, the big yellow eyes alone are a give-away.