I found these two birds far apart, but close together in my image library. The eagle photo was taken in southeast Alaska … home to thousands of bald eagles (and my home for a year or so back in the 1970’s). The mountain blue bird photo was taken in Yellowstone. I was more thrilled to see it than I was the eagle, since we don’t have them often where I live … and we have eagles flying over the house on a pretty regular basis.
I know I’ve posted other images of gray jays before, but this one was pretty insistent that I take its picture.
We took a break before hiking in the Hurricane Ridge area of the Olympic National Park. We immediately we visited by a flock of gray jays. I am always amazed how they seem to know where someone is eating. We guard our food carefully, since they are so little afraid of humans that they will swoop down and grab food off the picnic table right in front of you.
I like the different expressions they exhibit. And their lack of fear of humans (while generally a bad thing) is helpful for being able to get images like these with your iPhone. I shot these with my iPhone 16 Pro Max. I had a camera with me, but left it in the knapsack for these.
We went out for a bike ride on the Discovery Trail on the section just east of Sequim, Washington. Just as we were about to turn into the parking lot, we saw this flock of 16 quail. We stopped, I got out my phone and took a picture … then slowly drove and they scattered doing their quail dance/run.
About half way through we saw this vulture on a dead tree along the trail. Sorta wondered if it was a commentary on the way some of the bikers looked … struggling along looking like they would fall over at any time. Don’t usually see much wildlife when I’m out biking … too much attention focused on the roadway, I guess.
This jay was keeping an eye on me … checking to see if I was going to bring out any food. I see the gray jays often in the Olympic National Park … where there are lots of them year-round. Folks break the “do not feed the wildlife” rule frequently … often holding their snacks out in their hands … which will bring the jays down to eat out of your hand. This, of course, has just reinforced their begging and stealing behaviors. When I’ve been out backpacking, I’ve had to be very careful while fixing/eating dinner … I don’t backpack food in for the birds!