Sketching in Shoreline

 Truman and I recently checked out the Shoreline Community College campus as a potential sketching spot.  The buildings and landscaping were quite pleasant:

I didn't feel inspired to draw anything, however, until we found a little pond by the Biology building.

While I was drawing, I noticed little bugs hopping about on the pond surface.  This was exciting, as I had just been reading about water bugs and knew what they were -- Water Striders!

You see, my latest task as a volunteer with the Seattle Audubon Publications committee is to proofread every word of a new field guide, Pacific Northwest Insects.   I've read chapters about spiders and mites and ticks and bedbugs and aphids and cicadas and scorpions and the wonderfully named Piglet Bugs and so on and so forth, most of which did not particularly thrill me, but I enjoyed the water bug section very much.  And so I had a delightful time watching the Water Striders.

This one appears to have captured a prey insect:

After I finished drawing at the community college, I took Truman for a walk at nearby Shoreview Park, where I was not thrilled to turn a corner in the path and see this:

Of course, after that initial 1/1000th of a second when I thought "WHA???!|", my logical brain kicked in and said, "Oh, it's art!"   While I haven't yet been given the annelid section of the field guide, I'm pretty sure someone would have told me by now if we had giant worms in the northwest!

Or should I send this photo to the book's author for an expert opinion?

That was it for our Shoreline adventures.  Coming tomorrow:  the wilds of Woodinville.