Harlequin Duck

One of the great things about Seal Rock State Park is that you can regularly get close views of Harlequin Ducks during the winter. I suppose one reason is that it has classic Harlequin habitat; rocky coastlines with strong wave action.
While they will swim in right next to the shore, they are quite shy and make a beeline for more open water when they see you approaching. But with a little patience, I was able to get some reasonably good pictures.

The skies were clear for the first hour and a half during my visit, but then the clouds starting rolling in, cloaking the wonderful morning sunlight that the beaches enjoy. Unfortunately this was when I got my closest shots of the ducks. For some reason, I have trouble getting sharp looking pictures of males. It maybe have to the its dark coloring, but I'm not sure.
In the images above, this male is being tossed around a bit as it navigates the waves crashing in between the shore's rocks. I've noticed that both Harlequins and Surf Scoters tend to dive under water whenever it gets very rough. I'm not sure if that is to avoid the waves or if the agitated water stirs up better food harvesting opportunities.

This female caught a small green fish. Not sure what it is. I've never seen a fish quite that green.

Harlequin Duck

I'm on vacation for the rest of the year and decided to start the time off by renting a 600mm f/4.0 lens and a 1.7x teleconverter for the weekend. I've rented the 400mm f/2.8 a couple times in the past and have been wanting to try the 600mm. Since waterfowl are the main attraction these days and many are too far out on the water for my 300mm to reach, I thought now would be a good time to give it a try.
Pro Photo in Portland rents either for $80 a day. However, if you rent over the weekend, you can pick it up on Thursday after 3:30 and don't have to bring it back until Monday morning at 10:30 for the same price. Pretty good deal I think since buying these lenses would set you back somewhere in the neighborhood of $8000+.
I started out yesterday with a trip to the coast. I thought since I have all this glass, I'd try Boiler Bay since I read about all the sightings on OBOL. Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck. Not sure if was because the birds were all way off the coast because of the good weather or that they typically are always way off the coast and even with all this camera glass, it is no match for a good viewing scope.
So after a couple of hours of frustration, I decided to move to Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. I was there last summer and it was alive with birds. A 600mm lens would have been great to have during that trip. I knew that it wouldn't be like that now during the winter, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.
Turned out I was right, Colony Rock was mostly barren except for a gull here and there. But that's were the 600mm with 1.7x teleconverter came into play. I started scanning the rock and surrounding ocean with both my camera and binoculars and eventually started finding birds. There were quite a few Black Turnstones, Surfbirds (I think) and Black Oystercatchers on the rock. In the water I saw Western Grebes, Common Loons, Surf Scoters, Black Scoters, various Cormorants and Harlequin Ducks. There were also other birds further out that I haven't been able to identify because of the distance. With the exception of the Oystercatchers, I probably would not have been able to identify any of these birds with either my binoculars or 300mm lens.
The Harlequin Ducks, in the images above, where out quite a ways. In the lower image they were actually on the sea side of Colony Rock. In the upper image they were to the south also out beyond the rocks.