Back to the Refuge

 It's been a while since I visited the McNary National Wildlife Refuge (which is about 11 miles away in Burbank).  I tend to avoid it in Spring because it gets quite buggy, but one day last week I felt like venturing farther afield, and there was a light breeze, which can keep down the bugginess, so I tootled off.

It turned out to be quite a lovely day, with nearly no bugs to speak of, and more birds than I anticipated seeing.  One of my faves was out on the water -- the Ruddy Duck, with its fabulous blue bill and perky tail:

Nearby was this Cinnamon Teal:

There were plenty of Yellow-headed Blackbirds in the reeds:

The highlight, though, was an avocet that flew in and landed on the path, and strolled about for several minutes.  I had never seen one of these splendid birds completely out of the water before.  Check out those legs!

Normally I only see them wading or swimming.

I had stopped at a park nearby to look for Ospreys on a nesting platform there, without any luck, but got to see one flying overhead instead:

And the Barn Swallows were busy swooping about -- I was happy to have one land briefly:

I had brought lunch along, and Truman and Pippin and I enjoyed a rest on the refuge  headquarters balcony, where I ate and they watched attentively.

On a different outing, closer to home, I spied this lovely female Common Merganser on the Columbia River:

And the Great Egret that's been frequenting that riverside park was back fishing several days last week.  The fish it catches are rather on the small side.  Here's a pic of one:

Last but hardly least, on yet another outing to a different park on the Yakima River, I got to see this delightful Lark Sparrow -- it was eating a dandelion.

It seems appropriate that after such a birdy week, one of our art session pictures should be a heron:

The second session pic was not a bird.  My fellow Zoom artists chose a picture of a fungus to draw, which I did not find inspiring.  I decided to do a google image search for lighthouses, one of my favorite subjects, and found an unusual one to try.  It's a still from a 2019 film called, simply enough, The Lighthouse.  The picture was dark and gloomy and menacing, with no details in the figures.  I had a good time drawing this, using ink and watercolor on gray toned paper:

Quite different from my typical drawings!

That's it for the roundup.  Have a great week out there!