Spooner Lake June 2010
So, the first day of the holidays. The mission I'd set myself was to see a white-headed woodpecker and the first place I decided to look was Spooner Lake. Well, I am pleased to say that the search was successful. In fact, it was more successful than I'd hoped. I walked about half way round the lake with Karen and William, then they went off on their own. As soon as I was on my own, I happened across a nesting pair of white-headed woodpeckers. I actually got very close to them which is pretty sad in that I didn't get any amazing photos. That said, the photos aren't the worst either. Now, the one thing I'd like to talk about is that I heard that some birds do a one in, one out rotation on the nest to make sure that the eggs or young are either protected against predators or cowbirds. It would appear that these woodpeckers were employing this strategy. When the female came back, I saw something fly out of the nest, but didn't quite get to see it. When the male came back, however, you can clearly see the female looking out the nest waiting for him to climb up. As soon as he got near the hole, she shot out and he climbed in. Pretty cool if you ask me.
There are some flycatchers and warblers that I'm not sure about their names. I think the birds photographed are:
- American Robin
- Brewer's Blackbird
- Brown Headed Cowbird
- Canada Goose
- Cassin's Finch
- Mallard
- Mountain Chickadee
- Pygmy Nuthatch
- Steller's Jay
- Turkey Vulture
- Warbling Vireo
- Western Grebe
- Western Tanager
- Western Wood-Pewee
- White-Headed Woodpecker
- Willow Flycatcher
- Yellow-Rumped Warbler
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