Heavy overcast with gusty wind and rain. Temperatures in the 40s.
I headed out for the late morning high tide. Predicted at 12.5 feet, it was running near expected.
At Nelson Logging Road, the water was distinctly higher than yesterday (though apparently not as high as at least one of the tides last month). It covered the lowest section of the path.
As I walked out to the spur on the creek side of the Estuary Life trail, I saw an eagle swoop down and grab something from the water. I heard brief squeek as the eagle pulled its talons up from the surface. In the moments it took me to realize what was happening, the eagle was up and away. I’m confident it had caught a vole swimming at the surface after being flushed out by the high tide.
Later I saw this happen again. This time, I managed to get mediocre pictures of the eagle in flight.
It’s the first time I’ve seen an eagle going after voles at high tide. Previously I’ve seen herons going after the voles, and I have heard of two other people seeing an ermine going after voles. Though the voles aren’t much food for an eagle, I’m not surprised the eagle(s?) took advantage of the opportunity.
I started pishing to see if any interesting sparrows were around. Half a dozen Song Sparrows popped up from the flooded estuary meadow and adjacent shrubs. Among them was one smaller sparrow. I never got great looks, but saw enough to confirm it was a Swamp Sparrow, my first of the year.
I hadn’t seen any swans when I arrived, but honks drew my attention towards the creek. A family of four was swimming down. I think they had been upstream and out of sight when I arrived. I imagine this is a different family than the one I saw a few days ago. I’m guessing that family lost the one young swan that was dead in the estuary yesterday. Folks from the raptor center picked it up and tested it for avian influenza. It was skinny and smaller than expected, but didn’t show any obvious cause of death.
A wren was nicely cooperative while I took pictures of it perched at the edge of the boardwalk.
The rain wasn’t falling too hard while I was at Starrigavan. Overall the wind wasn’t consistently blowing in the estuary. However, sometimes a large gust of wind seemed to crash down from above. I could see it driving the rain drops and pushing the water and grasses as it spread out from where it first impacted.
I stopped by the channel this afternoon and saw a male Common Goldeneye. The first I’ve seen in the channel this fall.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
