Birds of Delta Ponds

Sunday, Mark and I went for a walk through Delta Ponds.  They're connected to the Willamette River, so I think that makes them an ox-bough.  The City of Eugene designated them a park, and it's home to water fowl, osprey, nutria, and otters.  We were hoping to see the otters we saw last Thursday, but we didn't.

Mark was better at spotting birds than I was, possibly because he thinks to look up, and I am usually looking at where my feet are going or am trying to frame a photo in my camera.  We weren't quite sure what this wood duck was at first because it was up in the trees.

Normally, we visit Delta Ponds in the evening, so we had to travel to the east side of the ponds to get good light and color on the birds.  This is my favorite shot of a red-winged black bird -- I like their call, too.

This is not a robin, it's a... um... oh, darn -- I'll have to ask Mark again.

 Across the lakes we saw a nutria at the edge of Goose Island.  Or a Goose Island.  This part of the ponds had Sentinel Geese, standing on every promontory and apparently keeping watch over the waters -- this one came down to see what the nutria was up to.

I think the Sentinel Geese were incubating eggs. 










Duck Butt!

 When we started our hike, we walked under an osprey platform.  Photographing it was tricky and I too a few bad shots of it.  Coming back, Mark saw another osprey snacking on a fish.  We would have liked to have seen it fishing, but watching it eat was cool, too.

Of course, I had to trick my camera into focusing on the osprey and not the branches, and there are many deleted photos of twigs and trees in the foreground.

We left the ponds, lingering for a moment to see if the otter might show, but it didn't.  In the distance, the osprey continued its meal.