Wildlife

For information about Illahee wildlife please see the following write ups:

Illahee Community Plan

Illahee Forest Stewardship Committee

Blog entries containing wildlife sightings
from December 07 through the present

Community Wildlife Updates:

2/5/08

Four Illahee wildlife sightings to report.

Ravens. In the past few years ravens have visited and resided in and near the Illahee Preserve. They and their unique call were absent for awhile in some areas of Illahee, but they are still around as confirmed by residents living near the Preserve.

The Morning Seal & Cormorant Ritual. Every morning a float north of the Illahee community dock transitions from being a resting place for about 20 seals to approximately 70 cormorants. Early in the season if the seals lingered on the float too long the cormorants would do fly overs and swim around the float as if trying to tell the seals it was time for them to leave. Lately the cormorants have become much more bold and are landing on the float while the seals are still there. As more and more of the cormorants get on the dock the seals finally give up possession. The ritual is repeated morning after morning.

White-Winged Scoters. Some of the most colorful sea ducks are the Scoters, especially the Surf Scoter, which is often seen in our area during the winter season. A small flock of White-Winged Scoters have been observed recently in Illahee. They are identified by a small patch of white on their wings. The male has the large orange bill and a small white patch under the eye. The female has a black bill and an almost obscure light patch on its head. They are deep divers and eat crustaceans, mussels, and clams. They have exceptionally strong gizzards that are able to break down hard shell invertebrates into digestible matter.

River Otter or Possibly a Fisher? One of our residents is trying to identify an animal spotted mid afternoon in January, near the blackberry patch across from 5287 - 5303 Illahee Rd. It appeared that the critter was about 24 to 30 inches long with a 8 to 10 inch long bushy tail. Both body and tail had long black fur. His search of look alikes (possible suspects) has him wondering if it could be a Fisher, "Mantes pennanti" of the family Mustelida. While both the River Otter and the Fisher are of the same family and are of similar shape and size the otter has long whiskers and none were observed. Good views of the Fisher can be seen on this web site. Let us know if anyone else has seen this animal and can help us with an identification?

1/2/08

We promised an Illahee bird sighting update so we thought we begin with an owl and eagle story and then some winter waterfowl sightings. We would like to cover more terrestrial birds later.

A small owl was found dead alongside Illahee Road by Irwin Krigsman. Jim Trainer identified it as a Western Screech Owl that was likely hit by a car. Others have noted lots of owl activity in the area and of seeing owls flying across Illahee road.

A report of a Bald Eagle chasing a duck up and down bay was interesting. The observer commented how fast the eagle was flying and that the duck made three trips (evidently north, then back south, and then north) before the eagle gave up. We have watched the eagles chase seagulls in the air, but never before ducks.

The most unusual sighting this year is the number of Common Mergansers swimming up and down the bay. The other day there was a flock of about 800 that landed north of the Illahee dock. They swim along the shore with their heads in the water looking for fish and when they find a school they dive and chase after them.

Some of the other waterfowl in the area are:

Common Golden Eye, which are distinguished by a greenish sheen on the males head, along with a white roundish patch on the face behind the bill.

The Barrow's Golden Eye looks similar though slightly smaller, and has a bluish purple sheen on the males head, and a crescent shaped white patch on the face behind the bill.

Buffle Heads tend to stay out in a little deeper water and are smaller than the Golden Eyes. There also appears to be several types of grebes around, with the Horned Grebe often seen diving with the other ducks. Some years we see lots of Western Grebes, but so far they haven't been sighted around Illahee.

There are a few Red-breasted Mergansers around that are intermixed with the diving ducks.

Some residents have noted fewer numbers of Wigeon ducks in the area this year.

Cormorants are a common sight out on floats. The ones in our area are the Double-crested Cormorant. Cormorants aren't able to waterproof their wings so they like to perch after swims to dry out their wings. There seem to be about a hundred cormorants in the area north of the community dock seen diving and drying out their wings. Between the mergansers and the cormorants, not to mention the seals and sea lions, there must be lots of feed fish out in the bay to support the fish eating bird populations.

We haven't tried to cover the shore birds but there are some Greater Yellowlegs in the area.

12/18/07

Salmon. Salmon are still around and can be seen jumping, in spite of all the seals and sea lions in the area. We are hoping they are hanging around to go up Illahee Creek, but they are probably going to find it difficult, as we will describe below.

Barking. Barking can still be heard at all hours of the evening and less often during the day, only it isn't your neighbors dog, it is coming from the sea lions out in the bay.

11/26/07

Seals or Sea Lions barking? There has been a noisy seal or a sea lion barking for the past few weeks. We don't know where it is resides, but it can be heard throughout much of Illahee at different times day or night.

We don't know if it is a seal or a sea lion so if anyone has any information please let us know. Some of the long time residents don't remember this happening in the past.

Sea Lions. We continue to see the sea lions feeding on small salmon most everyday. Others have reported seeing the porpoise like jumping (completely out of the water in a smooth small arching motion) of some mammals in the vicinity similar to what someone reported last month. Again, we don't know if they are small sea lions or seals or something else. They are definitely not the big sea lions chasing the fish. Let us know if you have any ideas what they might be.

Seals & Cormorants. The number of seals in the area seems to be increasing. On Monday morning (11/26/07) one person reported 16 seals on an area float. Evidently this float is also used by some 40 or more cormorants during the day and if the seals linger too long on the float in the morning, the cormorants start flying by seemingly trying to intimidate the seals into leaving.

Mergansers. Several people reported seeing a group of Red-breasted Mergansers swimming close to the beach where a group of Common Mergansers were sitting on the water. They looked at each other and then the Red-breasted Mergansers swam on. Its not very often a person sees two different species of the same generic name together in the salt water like that. One of the reporting persons said they are looking for a good camera so they can document sightings like those for the rest of us to see.

10/17/07

Wildlife Sighting Email of 10/4/07 - We received a number of responses, including this one.

Your wildlife sightings were forwarded to me from Southern California and I found them quite interesting.

My Husband get up pretty early in the morning and heard the sea lions splashing and blowing. He got me up, thinking he was hearing whale sound. As the dawn twilight became morning light, we could see the sea lions target their prey.......actually there were three at least. One by the Illahee State Park dock, probably out 1/3 of the way, and two in the middle of the bay more in front of Rue villa...............they did work their way north. The park sea lion chased his way into the cove near Rue Villa and gave quite a show, as did the middle of the bay boys, who jumped completely out of the water. We watched them for hours and stopped about 10:am. They were still splashing about at noon.

Please put me on your community list of email persons. I am interested in the development of this community.