Catch of the Day

According to my birding book, Point No Point is “Kitsap County’s destination birding site.�? Unfortunately, my recent trip there might suggest otherwise. Two hours of walking and climbing over driftwood netted me a few gull pictures and this:

Perhaps the pair of Bald Eagles flying overhead explained the lack of birds, but the most memorable moment of the walk came when two large dogs charged me and stood growling and barking at me not much more than two feet away while their owner assured me that they wouldn’t bite, though it was less than comforting knowing they wouldn’t come when he called them.

My trip to the Nature Conservancy’s Foulweather Bluff Reserve wasn’t any more rewarding, birdwise. My photography was limited to some interesting shells:

and this oddity:

It may be a starfish, but, if so, it has more arms than any starfish I’ve ever seen. Still, after twenty-some years of contributing to The Nature Conservancy it was nice to actually visit one of the places I’d helped preserve, even if all I saw was a Great Blue Heron and a flock of Mallards off in the distance.

The catch of the day, though, came at Theler Wetlands where I enjoyed visiting with Butch who spotted this Ringed-Necked Pheasant I’ve seen at a distance several times but never managed to get close to. Today he was so busy eating grain someone had left on the trail that he didn’t look up until I had gotten so close that my telephoto lens could only get a head shot:

He’s no Kingfisher, but he was beautiful. Just seeing him up close made my day. Probably time to admit that I’m easy.