A Bit of This and That -- the Usual Stuff

 The Hounds and I have been enjoying the autumn colors on our walks of late:

And we're enjoying seeing some of the Wintering Waterfowl arrive -- these are American Wigeons:

And we've just enjoying our daily strolls along the river:

I'm not sure how much longer these strolls will last, though, as it's getting colder out there, especially in the mornings, which is my favorite time to walk.  It may soon be time to hunker down, and come up with more and more creative things to do.

Speaking of creative things, remember my 34,340-stitch needlepoint version of the Good Omens Series 2 promo pic?  Well, I framed it!  All by myself!  Okay, with a little help from the friendly customer service person at framedestination.com, but still, this was quite an accomplishment, for I had never framed needlepoint before and it can be tricky.  Everything turned out beautifully, if I say so myself:

It's now hanging in the living room, and I am best pleased. 

As for other creative endeavors, I liked both the drawings we did during our Zoom sessions.  The first was a snake against a dramatically dark background, and I decided it needed to be drawn digitally using the Adobe Fresco program on my iPad.  Haven't done that in a while, and it turned out fine:

The second scene was Mount Fuji in autumn, for which I used watercolor:

Another thing I enjoyed this past week was storm cloud watching -- we have relentlessly sunny clear blue skies here a great deal of the time, and I get excited whenever good clouds arrive.  We had a couple of rainstorms this past week, and after the rain stopped, I went out for walks and drives to capture the clouds:

There were no more new birds to see on any of my adventures of late, but I did get some pics of our common birds.  This is a White-crowned Sparrow:

And here is a cooperative California Quail (they usually scurry off into the brush long before I can get a photo):

Here is a Spotted Towhee, which come here only in colder months of the year:

And I also spotted this female White-crowned Sparrow taking a bath in the one of the puddles left by the rainstorm:

But wait, there's more!  In home decorating news, I splurged on a new area rug for the living room:

You might notice something about the coffee table...yes, those are skeins of embroidery floss.  Yes, I'm starting another needlepoint...oh dear.  Check back in four or five months when I might be finished with it.

Truman approved of the new rug:

And so did Pippin:

Truman and Pippin also approved of the Hallowiener party we attended on this past Saturday, hosted by the wiener walking group we belong to.

The group organizers set up a nice fenced area for the wieners to romp around in, and meet and greet:

Truman and Pippin wore their matching Jedi hoodies:

I liked this sharkwiener costume:

I have no idea what these two are supposed to be, but the costumes were handmade and quite well done:

These two reminded me of Truman and his Seattle buddy Winston:

This person got mobbed when he offered some dog treats:

We had a little costume parade:

Good fun all round!

Okay, that's it for now.  Whew.  

Happy Celtic New Year!

Third Time's the Charm

 Or rather, third year is the charm -- more on that cryptic subject line later!

First, a dog walk through the Chamna Natural Preserve, where we haven't been in some time, mostly because there's too much cheatgrass there in summer.  It's nasty stuff that can injure dogs, so we wait until it has died back.  Also, Truman doesn't like this place because we can't use the stroller, and he has to walk the whole way, which he mostly balks at:

I just leave him behind, and trot off with Pippin, and eventually Truman decides he wants to tag along with us, with some encouragement from his buddy:

There are over eleven miles of trails through this area.  We hiked a good three of them.

More reluctance on Truman's part:

We saw some lovely autumn foliage:

Here is Truman again, refusing to budge:

There are lovely views of the Yakima River:

Eventually we turned around and headed back towards the start, at which point Truman rocketed ahead on the trail, because we were finally going in the right direction -- towards the car, and home:

Another fun outing involved driving to the back of beyond to a horse barn/pasture where my friend Betsy from Seattle was having an equestrian riding lesson.  She brought along her horse Bentley, and I got to meet him for the first time.

Betsy and Bentley:

Betsy has been riding horses for decades and has done equestrian events and cross-country stuff for many many years but she had been out of practice for about two years after a fall that broke her nose.

This was her first time jumping again after that incident, and she did splendidly, and had a great time at the weekend-long riding clinic.

And Bentley made a friend:

As for art projects, our Zoom group did this colorful staircase:

We decided at one session to go outside our comfort zone and draw a person.  We chose this stylish woman at random.  My drawing got a bit messy, as I started with an overworked pencil sketch, then went to ink, and finally tried adding some color with colored pencils.  This was done in about an hour and fifteen minutes:

I suspect that all those portraits I've done over the past year and a half of Crowley and Aziraphale helped in getting this to look halfway decent!

Okay, now we come to the subject line for this post.  In the winter of 2018-19, a Slaty-backed Gull visited the Tri-Cities.  This bird is quite a rare visitor from Siberia/NE Asia, and I tried to see it, and failed after several attempts.  

In the winter of 2019-20, the bird returned to the same spot it favored -- a marina by Bateman Island.  I staked out the area on five or six occasions, and failed again.

Other birders would report seeing the bird either before I got there, or shortly after I left.  Sigh.

Well, a week or so ago, the bird returned again!  People reported seeing it in the early afternoons, so I tootled off as soon as I could, and sat there one afternoon chatting amiably with a pair of birders.  All we saw were some cormorants, pelicans, and grebes out on the river, and this Cooper's Hawk eating a pigeon:

A few birders reported seeing the gull in the late mornings, so the next day I decided to head out around 10:30am.  I was determined to keep going, day after day, no matter how many tries it took, to see this rarity.  

The Slaty-backed Gull is larger than most other gulls that frequent our area, and it has a much darker back, and white wing tips.

This is the marina, where gulls hang out on the roof:

And this is what I saw when I walked over to it:

A large gull with a very dark back and white wing tips!

A nearby Ring-billed Gull kindly stood up and stretched, giving me a nice size comparison.

The other gulls around it, like the Ring-billed, all had yellow legs.  Another key field mark for the Slaty-backed Gull is pink legs, and after watching it for twenty minutes, the bird kindly stood up:

Pink legs!  Whoo hoo!  

I sent the pics to the local bird group, who confirmed the ID.  Now I can finally add this pesky bird to my Life List.  Whee!

I'm so glad that I don't have to keep going over there day after day after day.  

That's all for now.  Have a great week, everyone, and may you see some wonderful birds along the way.