Bufflehead Ducks (Bucephala albeola)

Here's a little closer look at these very small diving ducks. Above is a Bufflehead drake (Bucephala albeola) and below is the female of the species. I find it interesting how the different waterfowl and ducks in particular exploit different parts of the shoreline and different foods. Dabbling ducks like Mallards exploit the shallowest waters near the shore because they only feed on what they can reach while floating on the surface. The Buffleheads pictured today generally are shallow divers that feed on crustaceans and molluscs they find on the bottom a little further out than the dabbling ducks and in deeper water. Diving ducks like the mergansers that feed more on fish than on bottom life dive deeper and stay down longer so they are often seen even further away from the shore in deeper water.

Buffleheads

Some other winter residents on the Inner Harbour are these little black and white Bufflehead Ducks. They are diving ducks despite being very buoyant - they are so light that they have to give a little jump up from the water before diving so as to give themselves a little momentum. When they finish their dive they pop up onto the surface like little balloons.

Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus)

Here are a couple of my favorite winter residents, male (above) and female (below) Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus). These are diving ducks, constantly disappearing below the surface in search of the small fish and other aquatic life they eat. Like Wood Ducks, they nest up in the hollow trunks of trees. It would be a treat to see the ducklings emerge after hatching.

Winter Visitors

My favorite seasons are spring and summer so in autumn and winter I have to make special efforts to find things I like. Autumn brings all those strange mushrooms and other fungi and by the time winter settles in we have quite a differently composed bird population, particularly along the shore of the Inner Harbour. Here's one of my favorite winter visitors in a little bay off the West Song Walkway, a Hooded Merganser drake. We'll have a closer look at him and some other winter visitors in the next few days.

Olympic Mountains

Today was one of those days when various photo ideas came to nothing so here's a photo from the archives, almost exactly five years ago to this day. Taken with a 300mm telephoto lens it shows the Olympic Mountains across the strait in their winter splendor.