A Fine Day in the Skagit Valley, part 1

This may run to several days, if not all week, since I took over 300 photos yesterday.  I was able to reduce that down to fewer than 100, and am busy processing those to get down to the best of the best.

Tina and I headed north to the Skagit Valley on Sunday, a beautifully sunny day with no wind, no fog, no clouds, and a high in the upper 40s.  Perfect conditions for bird watching.  The main draw of the Skagit Valley is the annual arrival of Snow Geese by the tens of thousands, who winter over in the farmlands.

One doesn't always find the geese, though.  And even if you do find them, they may not be near a road for easy viewing.  Luckily, there are many, many other fabulous birds in the winter months, and we found plenty of them.

Our first stop was Jensen Access, from which we could see Skagit Bay and lots of lovely mud flats that attract shorebirds.

In the opposite direction, we had this view of Mt. Baker:

You could drive around just admiring mountains and have a fine time.

We found small flocks of Dunlin here, swooping around, landing here and there for a bit to forage, and swooping off again.

There were also Great Blue Herons about -- I especially liked this shot I got of one taking flight against the mountain backdrop:

Next we headed farther north, randomly turning down farmland roads in search of Snow Geese and Trumpeter Swans.  More about that tomorrow, though here is a teaser:

Truman Goes to Golden Gardens Park

Well, I went with him, of course.  I forget which day we did this -- now that I'm no longer working, I don't pay much attention to what day of the week it is.  It was a warm, sunny day  -- oh, wait, now I remember.  It was Wednesday!  I hadn't been able to take him to the Fill that morning, because of a lunch date right after.  So when I got home, Truman looked like this:

That's his trademarked "you must entertain me now!" expression.  So I took him to Golden Gardens Park and made him walk without the stroller all the way down to the wigeon pond.

We found wigeons there, of course, in large numbers.  Here we see a pair taking a nap -- note the somewhat creepy nicitating membrane over the eyes:

Here's a non-creepy wigeon with open eye:

Truman soon got bored by birds and wanted to walk along the beach.  This is why I left the stroller in the car -- you cannot push a stroller through all that sand and driftwood.

It was so sunny and warm that we paused for a while on a bench to admire the view.

Although Truman insists that I take him places, he always tires of the outing quickly and insists that I take him home NOW.  This is the end of our beach walk, and his trademarked "Where is the CAR?!" expression:

A fine outing indeed, if you ask me.  Not sure what Truman thought!

Sunshine and Warm = Birding!

Yesterday was a fabulous day to be retired!  There was plenty of sunshine and the temperature got close to 50, so I got out and about.

I got down to the Fill at 10:00am -- quite late for me, but just fine in terms of good birds.  At the parking lot I had the usual crows, robins, and starlings.  At the alder grove I had an Anna's Hummingbird, a Song Sparrow, a flyover by a few Glaucous-winged Gulls, and this lovely Yellow-rumped Warbler:

While I was admiring the usual Northern Flickers and Black-capped Chickadees, I noticed a bird flit up to a tree trunk which reminded me of the Downy Woodpecker I saw there a few days ago.  But when I got it in my bins, what a pleasant surprise I got -- a Red-breasted Sapsucker!

I've seen only a few of these birds ever, and I've never seen one at the Fill before, nor have I managed to get a photo until now.  It was hard, as the bird kept flitting from trunk to trunk and quickly circling round and round out of sight.  But in the end,  I got my photo.  Very gratifying!

I walked around the Loop Trail and saw far off in a stand of trees two dark shapes that did not look crow-like.  As I got closer, one of them flew off and landed close by -- a juvenile Cooper's Hawk:

The other bird stayed put.  When I got closer, I could see it was fanning out its feathers, something I'd not seen Cooper's Hawks do before.  It turned out to be an adult female:

I'm not sure what it was up to, but some of the feathers looked wet, so perhaps she was recovering from some sort of watery encounter?  I worried at first she might be injured, but eventually watched her make short flights to nearby branches, so I hope she was just drying off.  In any case, the views I got of that fabulous plumage were amazing:

What a treat!

I saw a total of 27 species.  The usual waterfowl were out on the lake -- Double-crested Cormorants, American Coots, Buffleheads, Mallards, Gadwalls, Wood Ducks, Canada Geese, American Wigeons, Ring-necked Ducks, plus a beautiful male Common Merganser, and another highlight -- about a dozen Ruddy Ducks (too far for photos).  Also saw the Great Blue Heron over on Southwest Pond, and heard (but did not see) a Bald Eagle.

Foraging on the path was this Golden-crowned Sparrow:

And foraging in the brush was a Golden-crowned Kinglet, a bird I've never gotten a good photo of because kinglets never sit still -- this pic isn't great, but it's a whole lot better than any of my earlier efforts:

A banner birding morning!

Sadly, Truman was unable to go with me, as I was going straight from the Fill to a lunch with friends.  So in the early afternoon I made it up to him by taking him to Golden Gardens beach.  Stay tuned for those pics tomorrow!

Down at the Fill

On Sunday, back when it was still sunny (yes, the gray and the rain have returned...sigh), Truman and I had a lovely (though chilly) walk around the Montlake Fill loop trail.

Our first rare sighting was of Connie, who used to practically live there but who hasn't been going regularly for many months due to various reasons.  I was cheered to hear that she plans to go more often now.  We always have a good time chatting while looking for birds.  We spotted both a Ruby-crowned and a Golden-crowned Kinglet in the Alder Grove, along with a Yellow-rumped Warbler and a Downy Woodpecker.  None of them posed for my camera.

So I took a photo over at the Southwest Pond of the easiest bird to snap pictures of:

Thank you, Great Blue  Heron.  Nearby was another easy snap:

And this little guy stayed still for me quite nicely:

The ducks, of course, are generally pretty cooperative.  Out on the lake there were Mallards, Gadwalls, Wood Ducks, Buffleheads, American Wigeons, Green-winged Teal, Northern Shovelers, Ring-necked Ducks, Greater Scaup, and in the "not a duck but still waterfowl" category, there were Double-crested Cormorants. American Coots, and Pied-billed Grebes.

Wood Duck and a Northern Shoveler:

It seemed quite a bit colder than when we went on Friday.  Turns out it was colder on Sunday -- cold enough that in the afternoon, when the sun went away and the clouds rolled in, we got snow flurries.

The snow did not stick, and Truman was unimpressed.

Today Tru gets to go to daycare -- even though I'm retired, I want to keep Daycare Tuesday as he loves to romp with this friends there, and it gives me at least one day a week where I can be gone many hours without feeling guilty about leaving him.

So far, retirement has not sunk in, as it just feels like a long weekend or a vacation.  I am enjoying sleeping in until 6:30 or even seven (!), and really enjoying not spending nearly an  hour on the bus commute one way.  Hurrah!

Indoor Wilderness

After Tina and I participated in the urban sketch group outing to the Meeker Mansion in Puyallup last Saturday, we decided to make the long drive worthwhile by adding a second outing.  Also, we were very hungry so lunch was in order.

 We went to the Bass Pro Outdoor World store in Tacoma (where the sketch group had once gone but it was new to us).  Goodness, what an enormous place -- I can see why you'd want to draw stuff there.  Murals on nearly every wall, and wildlife dioramas all over the place.

The restaurant was next to the bowling alley (yes, there's a bowling alley inside the store), which was modeled on an aquarium.  It was called the Fish Bowl.

We had about a 15-minute wait for a seat at the restaurant, so we parked ourselves behind some bowlers and sketched a little.

The restaurant also had an underwater, coral reef theme going.

While waiting for our food, we got some more sketching in:

After lunch we wandered around the place more, checking it all out.  We decided not to try any drawing in the store itself -- we were tired, and a bit overwhelmed -- but it would be a good spot to return to, and if the Tacoma group decides to visit again, we'd definitely be up for that.  Amazing place.

And now I am about to find out what Week 1 of retirement feels like.  (Note:  I successfully slept in until 7:00am this morning!)  It probably won't feel much different from a week's vacation -- I doubt it will truly hit home until it's been at least a month.  We shall see!

Sketching in 1890

On Saturday Tina and I joined the Tacoma Urban Sketchers for a special visit to the Meeker Mansion in Puyallup.  This historic (1890) home was built by Ezra Meeker,"The Hop King", whose main passion (other than making piles of money growing hops) was the history of the Oregon Trail.  He wrote 12 books on this topic. Busy guy.

While open to the public the rest of the year, the mansion is open by appointment only during the Winter months.  The group arranged for a private sketch viewing so we had the place just for us.

The drive down turned quite foggy:

There were fifteen rooms we could check out on two floors:

I drew a view of this room (see sketch farther down):

There was cool stuff to look at everywhere, even on the ceilings:

Many sketchers were attracted to this stove:

And lots of people drew this case of children's shoes:

We gathered around an antique pool table in the games room to share our work:

Here is the first view I drew:

The rooms and their furnishings were rather complex, so I searched out a simpler scene -- these dresses were in the master bedroom closet:

I also did several small ink sketches in the pantry, which are not that exciting and are not appearing here.

Finally, we managed to all pose on the staircase for the group photo (for anyone who doesn't know me, I'm second row right behind the woman in the red hat):

Great outing in a fabulous location.

Because we drove for an hour to get there, we decided to make the most of our outing by going to another spot on our own afterwards.  Stay tuned tomorrow for the Bass Pro sporting goods store (yes, it's a good place to draw stuff...wait and see why!).

FOY Birds

Many birders have a tradition of noting their First Of Year (FOY) birds seen.  I'm not sure why -- seems like there's an awfully high probability of this being a crow or a gull.  Apparently some folks think that the more interesting your FOY bird, the more interesting your birding year will be.   Nah, it's just the luck of the draw.

While dubious as to the worth of FOY birds, I can't help but notice which one I see on January 1.  Guess what?  It was a crow.  Now, if I hadn't glanced out my kitchen window this morning (crow flying overhead), and if I had waited just a few seconds to look out the front window (crow flying overhead...followed by NO CROWS for ages). then my FOY bird would have been an Anna's Hummingbird at my feeder.  Oh, well.

I think birders should just go for SOY (Second Of Year) birds instead.  I tried to do a mulligan for a FOY At The Fill, but when I got there, the first bird I saw was another crow.  The SOY At The Fill was a very nice Song Sparrow.  That suits me just fine.

It was in the 30s when Tru and I went to look at birds at the Fill around 9:30am:

We noted 27 species during our one-hour walk around the Loop Trail, many of them out on the lake.

About two-thirds of the way round, Truman expressed a desire to stop walking on the frozen path.  I had come prepared for this.

 It may be cold, but at least it's sunny!