In 2016 I’m doing a 365 Nature project. Each day of the year I will post something here about nature. It may be any format, a photo, video, audio, sketch or entry from my nature journal. It could be a written piece. Each day I will connect to nature in some way and share it here by the end of that day. You can keep up-to-date by subscribing to the RSS feed or be notified by email. See all the 365 Nature posts.
This morning dawned bright and sunny and I was anxious to get outside and explore. There’s a wetland park in Kirkland that I’ve been meaning to visit for a long time but never managed to make my way all the way to the NE side of Lake Washington. Today I decided to visit Juanita Bay Park because the weather was nice and sunny and it’s winter which is the perfect time to look for ducks which this bay is known for. The City of Kirkland has labeled it an ‘Urban Wildlife Habitat’ and they have a brochure with a list of birds seen there.
There were two large groups of birds which I don’t commonly see in such sizable groups around Lake Washington, the first being Pied-billed Grebes. I frequently see them, but only one or two at a time, here they were in the middle of the bay in a group of a dozen or more. On the other side of the bay a large, and at time noisy, flock of Green-winged Teals were foraging and resting on branches in the water. I heard many Red-winged Blackbirds, a Belted Kingfisher and a Bald Eagle. Below is a list of all the birds I saw.
- Green-winged Teal
- Gadwall
- Trumpeter Swan
- Pied-billed Grebe
- Anna’s Hummingbird
- Red-winged Blackbird
- Marsh Wren
- Red-tailed Hawk
- American Wigeon
- American Coot
- Mallard
- Bald Eagle (heard)
- Black-capped Chickadee
- Cormorant
- Ring-necked Duck
- Bufflehead
- Common Goldeneye
- Scaup
- Belted Kingfisher (heard)
More photos from Juanita Bay Park.
