I belong to this wonderful group of women called the "Birder Babes".  It is a group of some of the finest women I know; bright, inquisitive and hard working.  The best possible combination of attributes.  We band together to make trips happen to some awesome birding locations.  Most recently we went to the Semiahmoo Spit in Blaine, WA. It was a beautiful sunny day, which, as it turned out, was about the only sunny day of the entire month.  We totally scored. Here are some of my favorite images from the day.

Mount Baker from Semiahmoo We saw lots of Common Loons, but I managed to finally capture one Red-throated Loon

Red-throated Loon Common Loon eating a crab:

Common Loon eating a crab I had the closest encounters with a Harlequin Duck I have ever had:

Harlequin Duck Harlequin Duck One of the missions of the trip was to see the Long-tailed Duck.  The main group of ducks stayed well offshore, but one lone female swam closer to us.

Female Long-tailed Duck They are very dramatic when they dive, and throw up a beautiful spray:

Long-tailed duck diving spray Just before we were ready to leave, a male Long-tailed Duck started drifting toward shore.  He was sound asleep:

Male Long-tailed Duck sleeping He finally woke up once he hit shore, but he never seemed fully aware of where he was. He just bobbed in the waves for a minute or more:

Male Long-tailed Duck He finally turned around and started swimming, but he still seemed pretty out of it:

Male Long-tailed Duck Our last big show of the day was the Red-breasted Mergansers.  They have this wonderfully amusing way of chasing the one that caught the fish.  Seems counter-productive, but that is what they do.

Red-breasted Merganser The have to swallow their prey while swimming at high speed:

Red-breasted Merganser Semiahmoo is a fabulous location, and if the rain ever stops, I will head back up there.  In the meantime, I just get to work on my blog entries! 

To see more pictures from the day, click here: Semiahmoo