My wife and I did an overnight backpack into the Cascades near Mt. Baker last fall, got up in the morning and was groggily looking around and saw this far away, got two shots and it flew off. This is 100% pixel view, which makes it a 2% crop or so. I'm not a huge birder but know enough that checking this on camera on my little LCD, all I had, I was completely baffled what completely crazy accidental it must be to be at 5000' in the cascades at the end of Sep. with that oystercatcher-like bill. So I spent a couple of days thinking I'd get to report some ridiculous sighting when I got back to civilization, until I got home and looked at the pictures on my big monitor. I'll post the other picture I got, that I ignored at the time, in a comment, so it's below-the-fold, just in case anyone wants to guess
I didn't bother zooming in on the other picture on camera, since it was from the back and the profile was way more compelling and befuddling. Here it is, also at pixel level.
When we were scouting tent sites the night before there was one down by the lake that was nice but had a little leftover food trash, including... a couple of scattered Ritz crackers. So finally looking at this other picture when I got home it became clear that one of the ubiquitous camp robber gray jays was making off with one when I groggily just caught its profile.
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2 repliesWhen we were scouting tent sites the night before there was one down by the lake that was nice but had a little leftover food trash, including... a couple of scattered Ritz crackers. So finally looking at this other picture when I got home it became clear that one of the ubiquitous camp robber gray jays was making off with one when I groggily just caught its profile.