Art! Plus Truman and I Get Out and About Again

It's been a long time since I did any watercolor painting -- that is, not the sketching sort of stuff I do with mostly ink drawings and a little watercolor added, but a plain watercolor painting done in my "studio" (which is currently the card table in the living room).

Not that I haven't tried...I shall not be sharing the variety of failed efforts over the past months.  This past weekend, however, I had a bit more success with a mountain scene -- this was done from a photo I took up in the Skagit Valley a year ago, when two Northern Harriers were flying far far away, with the Cascades as a backdrop:

I rather enjoyed working on that piece.

Okay, onward to the Fill!  On Sunday morning I decided I would stay at the Fill until I had seen at least 30 species.  So far this year on my visits, I've had 25, 28, 27, etc...though I typically stay only about one hour.  And of course, the longer you stay, the more you see!

It took Truman and me nearly two hours, but we did it!  We actually logged 35 species.  Perhaps I should track Truman's bird life list, too.

I got him to get out of the stroller at times, especially where there were side trails to investigate where the stroller could not go.  Here he is navigating a couple of logs on the path:

I wish those two birders I saw earlier in the week who were searching for Wood Ducks had been around -- there were plenty of them over by the crew house:

We also saw a Great Blue Heron there, having a bad hair day:

Not only that, the heron wound up in a standoff with a Canada Goose who told the heron in no uncertain terms that the little island they were on belonged to the geese.

The heron stood its ground against the solitary goose, but when goose reinforcements arrived, it decided there were happier roosting spots elsewhere.

On Sunday afternoon, Tina and I made an impromptu sketch and photo visit to the Woodland Park Zoo.  Stay tuned for that report tomorrow.