A Little Winter Wildlife

Some of the resident wildlife we've been seeing.

 

These Tumpeter swans showed up for a day in early December.  We often see the spring and fall as they migrate through, but the timing was a little unusal.  Possibly they are wintering somewhere in the area, but we've only seen them once.

We have large flocks of Barrow's Goldeneye who winter here in the bay.

 

We see lots of Sitka Blacktail deer around the lodge.  This is a pretty big buck (Sitka Blacktail are small deer).  It's hard to tell from this photo, but the light spots above his eyes are where he recently dropped his antlers.

Our resident Belted Kingfisher.

 

We had a group of orca come into the bay.  There were two males, 4 females, and one calf.  We watched them for about 30 minutes as they worked their way back and forth around the entrance to the bay. 

The "Commuter", our resident bald eagle who flies past the lodge westbound every morning and eastbound in the afternoon.