Nutria

I've been busy catching up on work, working on our church's budget and now I have a cold. :-(

I took these pictures of a Nutria from the bird blind at TRNWR back on Dec 18 with the rented 600mm lens. Not only does this lens have much more reach than my 70 - 300mm zoom, it also produces sharper images. My dear wife is starting to understand why I want to spend a ridiculous amount of money to get a lens like this!

Nutria are actually an invasive mammal brought here to Oregon from South American back in the 1930's to replace the Beaver when its numbers where diminishing from over trapping. They destroy a large amount of native plants and can damage ecosystems as they only consume about 10% of the plant, eating only the stems and leaving the foliage to die.

American Coot

A couple of American Coot seen from the bird blind at TRNWR last Saturday morning.

Green-winged Teal

While the bird blind at TRNWR gives you a chance to get some close, undisturbed pictures of waterfowl and other birds, they can still be a fair distance off for my 300mm lens. So whenever I rent either the 400mm or 600mm lens, I try to spend some time in the blind.
Such was the case this past Saturday morning. The water level was back up and while the bird diversity wasn't as good as I've experienced, there were plenty of Green-winged Teal. I took quite a few shots and posted some of the better ones above. These are very pretty ducks and I realized when comparing them to a few Mallards that swam through that they are also rather small.
Other birds seen were Mallards, Gadwalls and American Coot in the main pond and Northern Shovelers and Northern Pintails off in the side pond. I also got a few nice shots of a Nutria.

Belted Kingfisher

While I was in the blind Saturday morning, I suddenly heard a loud chatter noise. I quickly looked out all the blind openings, but didn't see anything. Then it stopped and I decided I missed whatever it was. But it started again and this time I saw it a short distance from the blind. A Belted Kingfisher was trying to swallow a small frog it had caught. I was able to get several pictures. This one captured the moment the best as it offers a good view of the bird and you can plainly see the frog in its beak. Getting this picture made sitting in the blind all morning worth it!