It's All in the Timing

 Last Monday, when it was over 50 degrees and sunny, I decided to visit the McNary wildlife refuge to look for Snow Geese (which spend the winters here).  Initially I planned to go after lunch but the weather was so nice before then that I just couldn't wait, and headed off at 10:30 instead.  

When I got there, a large flock of Snow Geese were hanging out quietly in a field.  I parked, got out, aimed the camera at them, and thirty seconds later, this happened:

The birds scattered in huge waves, madly flying every which way.

Then they all headed away from the field and over towards the refuge's slough.

Why had they suddenly erupted in flight?  Because of this bird:

This is a Red-tailed Hawk, which had swooped down at the Snow Geese flock.  I drove over to the slough, where the birds had landed on the water.  I walked down towards them, spotting that hawk in a tree on my way.  About ten minutes later, the hawk took off and dove at the geese again, and I got another nice look at irritated Snow Geese taking off again in search of a calmer location:

They headed away from the refuge, out of of view.  I spent another hour or so walking walking the refuge trails, and didn't see another Snow Goose in that time.  Now, it's entirely possible that had I stuck to my original plan and arrived there after lunch, that the geese would have returned, and the hawk, too, to put on another show.  But who knows?  As it was, I don't think I could have timed it much better!

The Hounds came with me:

Truman is feeling much better now after his recent dental ordeal.

Here he is looking so much more at ease now that the extraction areas have healed and the sutures are gone.  Yay!

Okay, on to last week's art.

This is a place called Shiprock, NM.  After several frustrating weeks using hot press watercolor paper, I finally got my beloved Arches 140lb cold press paper and I'm so much happier now.  It's just so much easier to use wet-in-wet blends, as you can see:

I don't know the location of this second one -- the photo was just titled "foggy mountains."  I did a lot of wet-in-wet blending on this one, especially in the green hilly area.  Quite a challenge to finish this in an hour and 15 minutes, but so much easier on the GOOD paper!

So hooray for having the right supplies to work with.  

That's it for now.  The weather is turning warmer and it's looking a lot like Spring.  I'm able to go out for longer walks, and have even done some garden prep work.  Hope you are heading into Spring weather wherever you are, too!  

Unless, of course, you're in Australia.

Happy Monday out there!