OK, here's the story on this one. I was getting ready to leave the lake area at Yucaipa Regional Park a couple of days ago, and I saw this male Common Merganser come up from a dive with a really big fish. (I'm not sure what he thought he would do with it!). Suddenly these two pelicans swooped down and the one on the left grabbed the fish from the merganser. He plopped it into his pouch--in this shot you can see the tail of it, and then the rest of it is weighing down his pouch. He tried to swallow the fish, which was so large, other shots of him showed the outline of the fish, which took up about 3/4 of the length of his bill! He struggled to swallow it, and as I watched for at least 10 minutes, I'm not sure he ever got it down. He swam away from the other birds as he worked on the fish, and the drama was over, except for his gyrations, raising and lowering his bill as he swam away. Very interesting to see this behavior, and to capture even a little of the story. 2/4/21 www.sparhawkphotography.com
I went back to Yucaipa Regional Park today, and had a ball photographing birds. Last time I complained that the pelicans were just loafing around on the pier--this time I got lots of action--flying, swimming, bathing, preening, and even pirating food from other birds. At some point I may share some of those--today it is bathtime. Several of these big birds were performing a bathing ritual, over and over, that resulted in lots of flapping and splashing. This is an example of all the splish-splashing going on! 2/3/21 www.sparhawkphotography.com
This is just a few of a large flock of Cedar Waxwings that was perched in a tall tree in my complex. I saw them when I went to get my mail, and grabbed my camera and went back out. Not a great shot, as they were almost silhouetted against the sky, so had to pull out the colors to show how pretty they are. Looking carefully, you can see the bit of red wax on some of the wings, from which they got their name. Cedar Waxwings tend to travel in flocks, not staying in one place for long. I was glad to see so many of them in one tree--there were probably about 50 of them. 2/2/21 www.sparhawkphotography.com
