Jans Bird

Take Time to Watch the Ducks With JansBird Tracks

This site is a log of the comings and goings of ducks and other seabirds that pass by my beach on Henderson Bay in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Take Time to Watch the Ducks With JansBird Tracks

This site is a log of the comings and goings of ducks and other seabirds that pass by my beach on Henderson Bay in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Blog

Blog

Loons, Lots of Loons

It’s time for the Common Loons to arrive. They spend September and October here, which is a real treat. I started seeing a couple of Loons in mid September. I saw 4 or 5 in the distance a few days ago and yesterday I saw a group of 9 Loons.

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Finally Fall Ducks

The first ducks to arrive for the fall migration are the Eared Grebes. I began seeing them last week. Very happy to have ducks back. The grebes hang in groups of 4 or 5 and I have several of these groups around all the time now.

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Summer Ducks

Most of the ducks who visit my bay leave for the summer. Only a few are summer residents. Bald Eagles are here all year, but there is an eagle nest nearby and 2 eagles are very busy here in the summer feeding their young. Cormorants are also active here during

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Summer Visitors

My usual ducks all migrate for the summer. I am left with Herons, Canada Geese, Cormorants, Eagles, and lots of Gulls. It is enough to keep me entertained but I am watching closely now for my first fall returning ducks.

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Common Merganser Family

This brood of Common Merganser ducklings was photographed by my nephew, Jason, in Taylor creek near South Lake Tahoe recently. I see large numbers of Common Mergansers here in the winter. They are known to congregate in large numbers at prime sites. But they are gone now here. They like

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Osprey

I watched an Osprey fishing in front of my beach yesterday. I rarely see them here. I report in my Rare Sightings page that I have seen them only twice before now, September, 2017 and May 2020. I know Ospreys are known to nest in nearby Burley Lagoon so they

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About jansbird

I am a retired teacher. I taught high school physics and for the last 16 years was a high school principal. In my first 10 years of retirement I taught part-time at the University of Puget Sound and ran a small non-profit school reform shop called Coalition of Essential Schools Northwest. At UPS I taught teachers how to be principals and at CES Northwest I helped schools implement the principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national school reform program. Now I am really retired and pursuing my other interests full time. I have always been interested in natural history, the identification of living things. My formal science training is in Physics. I have very little formal education in nature but I have always enjoyed nature and living outside and being interested in what I see there. I like water and beaches and over the years have learned about most of the creatures found there. My interest in birds started by watching herons and ducks at my family cabin on Whidbey Island. That led to learning to identify other kinds of birds. I now know most of the local birds. When I moved to Gig Harbor I began keeping a log of the ducks and birds I saw coming and going. This blog is primarily to publish the data collected in those logs.

Photo Album