Buffleheads

Buffleheads are small diving ducks that are common along the shore in Victoria. They tend to dive a lot, making them hard to photograph. But breeding season was distracting these ones and they were spending more time on the surface showing off and chasing around. They are in the same genus as the Common Goldeneyes on the river in Saskatoon in the winter.

Usually the male's heads just look black, but when the light is right they are an iridescent green and purple.

The females are smaller and plainer.

This next one was at the end of a brief bout of mating, the male holding on to the feathers on the females head. The female was completely under water for most of it.

This isn't a great shot of the bufflehead, but nice reflections :-) Their black and white coloring is actually quite good camouflage here.

See all 10 photos in this batch

Neighborhood Activity

I was sitting at my desk when I heard crows making a fuss outside. I looked out in time to see a large bird landing in the tree across the street. At first I thought it was the neighborhood Great Blue Heron which visits that tree. But a mob of crows was harrassing it, and they don't usually make much fuss over the herons. I got the binoculars and realized it was a juvenile Bald Eagle. (They don't get a fully white head till they are four years old.) And there were actually two Bald Eagles in the tree.

You don't realize how big the eagles are until you see them beside something like this crow for comparison.

The eagles didn't seem too worried about the crows, but they still ducked and flinched when the crows dive bombed them.

The eagles left after a few minutes, but then one of them returned and seemed to settle in, so I grabbed my camera, put on the long lens, and went out in the yard. It was quite far away, and the light wasn't great, but I managed to get a few shots.

These are the first Bald Eagles I've seen in the neighborhood.