The Edmonds fishing pier gets you right out into Puget Sound to get closer to birds that you’d ordinarily need a spotting scope to see and confirm identity. Since I live in Edmonds, I’m usually down down at the pier at least every other week, sometimes twice a week. I’ve been on the pier recently fishing for squid a few nights. Winter is squid season but it’s been slow for squid. The squid are market squid, a near shore squid that is attracted to lights. Hence, they are near piers at night and that’s when you fish for them. Some folks bring generators and powerful lights to shine into the water. These are the folks you stand near while jigging for squid. Like I said, it’s been slow. I caught one squid and gave it away to my fishing buddy.
I digress, let’s look at some birds I saw and photographed a little over a week ago. Winter brings in the migratory waterfowl and other seabirds. The Bucket Brigade likes birds. I do, too.
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I photograph just about every gull I see that’s within reasonable range. The reason I do this is because gulls are a tricky challenge to identify and having a suite of gull photos to pore over helps me with that challenge. There are key features to look for like eye color, shades of black and gray, bill shape, etc. The larger gulls also hybridize between species so that you end up with gull mutts. I’m only including one gull in this set. Gull identification is a topic for another time.
Surf Scoters gather in some large flocks at the Edmonds waterfront in winter, especially around the ferry dock.
Cormorants are present year round but in higher numbers in winter. Double-crested Cormorants are the most common. Pelagic Cormorants are also very common.
Alcids are usually a fair distance from shore. The pier gets you closer to them and often they get close to the pier.
As I was walking off the pier, a gentleman approached me and asked: “Did you see the sea lions on the breakwater?” I didn’t. So, I walked back out to the end of the pier and took a picture.
Leaving the pier, I walked along the beach to Brackett’s Landing South Park next to the ferry dock. The park has a large grassy area and picnic tables. Around the perimeter of the park are shrubby areas of mainly native plants. These shrubby areas are perfect foraging and hideout areas for small birds like sparrows and warblers.
Leaving the beach area I headed over to the Cascadia Art Museum to do a little Christmas shopping at their gift shop. They have some really cool stuff. They also have nicely landscaped planters where they’ve left flower heads to shed seeds and some lingering tubular flowers. I didn’t plan on taking any photos until I spied an Anna’s Hummingbird working the flowers. A White-crowned Sparrow was working on seeds that had dropped to the pavement.
Thanks for joining me. I really love my town of Edmonds and I love sharing it.
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