All’s Well that Ends Well

I wasn’t happy Thursday night when I had a crown pop off while cleaning my teeth. Luckily I was able to see the dentist Friday, though it meant driving all the way to Vancouver and back on short notice, meaning that I didn’t have time to schedule my normal lunch date with old friends.

Still, I wasn’t about to drive that far JUST to visit the dentist. So I ended up leaving several hours early and visiting the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge. At first I was a little disappointed when I didn’t get a single bird picture during the 1 1/2 mile walk through the heart of the refuge, though I was quite fond of the Wild Teasel, a plant I’ve only vaguely noted before.

Once I got back in the car and proceeded to drive the rest of the loop, my luck seemed to change, though. First, I got this picture of a female Blue-Winged Teal, a duck I can’t remember photographing before.

A little further along, I observed a family of Pied-Billed Grebes closer than I’ve ever managed to get before. I was particularly charmed by this small chick that at first glance seemed to be a small stick because he sat so still for so long

The climax of the day, though, was getting this close-up of a male American Kestrel, who seemed to take pleasure in pointing out that I couldn’t follow him when he flew deep into the refuge:

To cap the day off, the dentist was able to simply re-cement the crown on without too much work. I was on my way home in less than an hour with a crown intact. I felt blessed that a day that started off so badly should end so well.

Anniversary

As I walked Nisqually yesterday, pterodactyl-like Great Blue Herons soared overhead, bringing with them a sense of deja-vu.

Suddenly the refuge had returned to its “original� state, at least to the state it was when I started visiting July 30th of last year.

Looking back at last year’s entries, the refuge was dominated yesterday by similar species, by Great Blue Heron,

Canadian Geese,

by numerous small shorebirds like these Lesser Yellowlegs.

I was surprised how right these changes felt though it wasn’t until I got home and checked this web journal that I realized it had been almost a year to the day I first visited Nisqually.

Last year it was the newness of Nisqually that thrilled me. Perhaps, then, it’s fitting that I didn’t see a single new species yesterday. Instead, it was knowing I had become attuned enough to the changes here that I recognized the completion of a cycle, a cycle that is older than the calendar itself, that thrilled me.

Of course, as one of the volunteers matter-of-factly pointed out, the reason the Great Blues had returned was that the water in the wetlands was low enough that they could easily find the small fish and polywogs that had flourished in the waters fed by fall and spring rain.

When Discriminating Becomes Discriminatory

I’ve been feeding birds nearly as long as I can remember now, whether it was by leaving fruit in the garden for the birds to share or by filling up one or two bird feeders every day.

Today, though, I took down my main feeder and won’t be putting it back up for awhile despite the fact that I’ll miss this beautiful female Black-Headed Grosbeak

And this beautiful, but greedy, Red-Shafted Flicker

Unfortunately, the feeder has been mobbed lately by flocks of Starlings that smoother the feeder, chase other birds away, and squabble loudly while gorging themselves.

I tried to scare them away for a couple days, but I’m afraid neighbors will report me as some sort of demented madman if I keep going out every few minutes and yelling to try to make them fly away.

Though I don’t dislike the Starlings as much as the small rats that were hanging around earlier in the year, they are a close second and the last thing I want to do is to attract them to my house. I’m not ungrateful when they flock on the lawn and eat all the insects in sight, but I really don’t like seeing the sky covered when they line up on the power lines waiting to descend on the feeder.

I want to encourage native species, not invasive species, but its seems nearly impossible to help one without also helping the other.

For now, at least, I’ll have to resort to the thistle feeder so that at least the Black-capped Chickadees living in the fir in the front yard will still have a source of food, though not as plentiful as the main feeder was.

Too Much Work, Too Little Beauty

After our delightful trip to Mt. Rainier on Friday, Leslie and I decided we’d better work on the yard and try to lay the brick path we’ve been talking about. I doubt many of you want to waste your short visit here seeing pictures of me trying to struggle to my feet after working on the path for several hours.

So, I decided to head to the front garden with my close-up lens where this beautiful lily has been literally reaching out for attention the last few days, as noted by the bright orange stains on two pairs of pants:

It’s certainly beautiful enough by itself to deserve your attention, but as I was trying to get the perfect picture, or at least a better one than the ones I featured on this site last year, I was distracted by a funny humm and click right behind me.

This little guy wasn’t about to be ignored, so I spent the next five minutes trying to capture a picture of him, a real challenge with a close-up lens. It was so close that I actually managed to get several good pictures, but this one of it sitting on a branch sipping nectar while listening to the click of my lens and observing me taking pictures is my favorite.