Quite a show
No otters day before yesterday, but I was treated to a show I've only seen a few times here over the years, and this was the best of all such similar performances by far.
There was a huge school of some sort of fish in the bay. I don't know what kind of fish they were because I never got a good enough look at one, but the local pelicans sure saw them, and there were at least 100 of them swooping and diving in the shallow waters right around the pier. Hundreds of skuas were following the pelicans' every move, and after a pelican would dive and was in the process of swallowing, the skuas cried loudly as they tried to snap up the fishes that escaped the larger bird's maw.
The harbor seals that hang around the pier were in on the action, too. I fully expected to see a collision between a pelican and a seal at some point, there were so many of both animals actively going after the fish school. In fact, it seemed like every fish-eating critter in the whole bay was there attacking the school, except, of course, the otters.
And yesterday, nothing. Total peace and calm in the harbor. I did see the first Western grebe of the season, though, and probably the last Common murre. Kind of rare to see both birds here at the same time. Kind of rare to see a murre at all this summer. They've been largely absent, just like the otters...
There was a huge school of some sort of fish in the bay. I don't know what kind of fish they were because I never got a good enough look at one, but the local pelicans sure saw them, and there were at least 100 of them swooping and diving in the shallow waters right around the pier. Hundreds of skuas were following the pelicans' every move, and after a pelican would dive and was in the process of swallowing, the skuas cried loudly as they tried to snap up the fishes that escaped the larger bird's maw.
The harbor seals that hang around the pier were in on the action, too. I fully expected to see a collision between a pelican and a seal at some point, there were so many of both animals actively going after the fish school. In fact, it seemed like every fish-eating critter in the whole bay was there attacking the school, except, of course, the otters.
And yesterday, nothing. Total peace and calm in the harbor. I did see the first Western grebe of the season, though, and probably the last Common murre. Kind of rare to see both birds here at the same time. Kind of rare to see a murre at all this summer. They've been largely absent, just like the otters...