Birch Bay trip cut short

So, stuff happens, right?  We ended up coming home after a couple of days since all the restaurants in our area along Birch Bay closed completely.  I can understand not bothering with takeout since they're not that busy this time of year anyway but if I'm going to be cooking dinner, I'd rather do it in my own kitchen.  And they closed the Canadian border, or at least limited it enough that day trips to Canada for birding seemed unlikely.  So, we came back.

But not before trying out some of the birding possibilities.  We got some great views of scoters from the walkway in front of our condo on the 5th floor.  Alas, my eye issues meant I needed to use the big screen to aim the camera and the glare from all that sun on Monday made that not work well so I only got one good distant shot.  Not bad for no walk birding though as long as you don't mind the gray wires slicing through the view.

Tuesday we went to Semiahmoo fairly early.  Small birds weren't out in numbers altho we did see a Bewick's wren in the bushes.  Again, lots of scoters and gulls.  And lots of benches so I didn't get a chance to use my new stool altho I carried it along with no problems.

There were clouds and early morning light so the colors are very different but this is good enough to see the distinctive scoter beak.

But the best shot of the day was a closeup of a gull. 

I'm not great at gulls but I'd call this a Glacous-winged Gull.

We'll be trying out the monoscope and the walking stick at the heronry here in Bellingham while doing our social distanced birding.   I'm going to do as much birding as possible because it really helps me stay calm and happy.