On March 26,2016, I was invited by a birding friend for an excursion on his boat.  We left the Twin Bridges Marina early in the afternoon in full sun.  The first bird we encountered was a Great Blue Heron sunning its wings.  At the time my mental thought was that the heron was drying its wings, but on further reflection I realized that there’s very little reason for a heron to get its wings wet, so I think we can just assume that it was enjoying the warmth from the sunshine.  Although I couldn’t hear it for the boat noise, I could tell by its throat that it was apparently vocalizing, and it appeared to do it even more as we left the marina area.

Our next major find was a group of Brandt’s cormorants on a buoy in Fidalgo Bay.,  This was my first sighting with identification of the species.

We later observed a group of 15-20 congregating in the water, something I’ve never observed with either the Double-creasted cormorant or the Pelagic cormorant.  The birds first formed a very tight-knit group, then moved off in a strung-out file.

Along our way we also observed several Long-tailed ducks, the two pictured below both being female.