Fogged Out

I should have known better than to try to take a last minute trip to the beach Friday. I had missed a package from Apple the day before and had to wait to go to the beach until it was delivered Friday, making it impossible to plan the day. Still, I wasn’t going to sit home all day on an 80℉ day.

Despite my late start, it was beautiful when I stopped at The Chehalis Wildlife Area around noon, though birds were scarce. It was well worth the drive simply to soak in the sunshine and see the numerous cow lilies (I always thought they were water lilies, but Google seemed to imply otherwise) in all their brilliance:

Cow Lily

It was still sunny when I reached Raymond on the coast. I generally detest Scotchbroom’s invasive tendencies, but looking at this variety I can see why people wanted it in their yards:

Scotch Broom

Further up the road, the first native roses suggested Summer is nigh at hand:

Native Rose

Unfortunately, high tide wasn’t until 6:30 PM and when I stopped for lunch/dinner at 3:30 at Westport, the fog was beginning to stream in. By 4:30 when I arrived at Bottle Beach, I was wondering if I was going to get any pictures at all.

I felt lucky to get much closer to these four Short-Billed Dowitchers than I had the previous time I saw them, and through the magic of Aperture and Photoshop I was able to pull most of the color out of some of the RAW photos I shot:

Short-Billed Dowitchers

The reality is, though, that this shot

Short-Billed Dowitchers

more accurately conveys what I saw while taking pictures, even though the fog varied from moment to moment.

People, including me, used to say that cameras were a poor imitation of the human eye, but top level digital cameras now have the ability to see more accurately than the human eye, at least when augmented with superior software.