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Due to other commitments, I unfortunately haven’t had time this winter to do much bird photography in my own backyard of Edmonds, WA, which is a great spot for winter birding.  So I was happy late one afternoon this past week to have a bit of time to visit the Edmonds waterfront and marsh on an afternoon with no rain and some sunshine.  One of the first interesting birds that I crossed paths with at the Edmonds Marsh was the Wilson’s Snipe in the photo above.  The Wilson’s Snipe is a shorebird that is occasionally seen in the Edmonds Marsh, but they can be difficult to spot as they are well camouflaged and tend to stay close to the edges of the tall grass, into which they will quickly disappear if spooked at all.  Consequently, it was nice to have a rare opportunity to see one out in the open for about ten minutes that was not very far away.

On the Edmonds waterfront I enjoyed watching and photographing the Common Goldeneye in the photo above. Goldeneye are one of my favorite species of ducks – there are two types, the Common Goldeneye shown above and the Barrow’s Goldeneye, which looks similar, but has a crescent shaped white patch on the side of its face instead of a round patch.  These are neat looking ducks – I love their iridescent green heads with the white patch.  They also put on a good show, continuously diving under the water looking for food and then popping back up above the surface,

There were also a variety of smaller songbirds on display at the Edmonds Marsh, including the Yellow-rumped Warbler and Golden-crowned Sparrow in the two photos below.