Seattle Day Trip: To Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary

George C Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary

Last week I accompanied my friend Bonnie and her husband on a day trip to the George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary in British Columbia.  This was my first trip to this refuge, and it was a spectacular place for walking groomed trails and watching birds.  They do allow visitors to feed the birds (they sell birdseed), so many birds seem accustomed to people and you can get very close.  This was wonderful for making photographs.  I find it very difficult to take pictures of birds because they move so quickly and it is hard to anticipate their moves.  Too often my photos look like this:

Photograph of lion swallow

Here are some of my better photographs of the wild birds and views within the sanctuary:

Female mallard ducks

Female and male wood ducks

Northern pintail

Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary

Canada goose

A bird in the hand . . .

American wigeon

Birder on a dike trail

We were very lucky because a vagrant Great Gray Owl had made a temporary stop at the sanctuary.  The owl had settled in a non-public area, but the staff took people back in small groups to see it — a rare sighting of this wild bird.

Great Gray Owl

Watercolor sketches of wood duck

Watercolor sketches of female mallard

 

 

 

 

 

A Bird in the Hand

You never know what you’ll see when you leave the house.  I was so glad I had my camera along on my walk around Green Lake, when we chanced upon this young girl trying to attract a red-winged blackbird to her hand.

I am of two minds about the encounter.  I know it is not a good idea to feed the park’s wildlife.  It is better to keep the birds and waterfowl wild, or they can become habituated to humans and sometimes even become pesky.

On the other had, the expression on this girl’s face was priceless.  It was a magical moment for her, and one does want to encourage spending time in the natural world.  Undoubtedly, this was a positive and memorable moment for her and her mother.