Month: June 2010

Some Favorites Show Up

I’m never disappointed when I walk Theler Wetlands because I know I’m going to find beauty no matter when I go. Generally I can count on seeing a fairly wide variety of birds, but even if birding is slow I can count on the native plants, particularly the wild roses, or the garden maintained by the Master Gardeners.

Still, it’s a particular treat when I see favorites, like this striking Cedar Waxwing,

Cedar Waxwing

or this Wild Iris which fights its way through the thickest vegetation once a year,

Wild Iris

or, when I’m really lucky and get a shot of the Green Heron,

Green Heron

which is the reason I originally started walking Theler. I never did see one the first year I went there. The second year I got some good shots of an immature green heron, which lacks the red neck seen on this Green Heron. I’ve been saying for years that the ditch that lies just inside the dike trail looks like the perfect habitat for Green Herons, but I’ve never seen a heron, even a more common Great Blue Heron, in the ditch before Sunday’s walk.

Another Sunday at Belfair

It’s easy to see how beautiful a bird is when you see it for the very first time. It’s much harder to remember how beautiful common birds are. As a photographer, I point my camera at any bird I see —it’s automatic. I don’t always push the shutter button, though. Even though it’s easy to delete digital pictures, too often I find myself saying, “Just a robin, crow, etc.”

However, on Sunday’s trip to Belfair I was greeted by this Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee

as we entered the refuge and was struck by its bright colors.

Song sparrows are even commoner than Towhees, and it’s nearly impossible to ignore their singing. Their sound is as distinctive as the Red-Winged Blackbird and much more common this time of year.

Song Sparrow

Common or not, it’s hard to deny it’s a beautiful song.

I’m even more apt to overlook Robins, but it was impossible to ignore this one when he landed at eye level a few feet in front of us with some of the first berries of the year in his beak.

Robin with Berry

I suppose if Emily Dickinson could write so many poems about robins

The Robin is the One
That interrupt the Morn
With hurried — few — express Reports
When March is scarcely on –

The Robin is the One
That overflow the Noon
With her cherubic quantity –
An April but begun –

The Robin is the One
That speechless from her Nest
Submit that Home — and Certainty
And Sanctity, are best

I may be excused for including yet another shot in my blog.

Jim Says Goodbye

I’d hoped to take Jim up to Mt. Rainier before he had to return to Vermont, but, like most of this year so far, the weather refused to cooperate, so he had to settle for a glimpse of the mountain on our way to Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.

Since I’d already taken him to Belfair, and because the weather was too questionable to justify a long drive, I took him to La Fuentes by Nisqually and bought him his first-ever Torta. Any day I can eat a barbecued pork torta with cilantro and avocado is a good day for me. (You do know I walk and exercise as much as I do so I can eat what I want and still not get too overweight, right?)

It was relatively quiet at Nisqually, but we did see three different Wood Ducks with chicks. This was my favorite shot:

Wood Duck with Ducklings

You think mom was asleep or keeping an eye on visitors?

As many Cinnamon Teal as I’ve seen this year,

pair of Cinnamon Teal

I wonder why they were so rare the previous four years I was birding.

Once again, Jim spotted a bird I would have missed entirely if he hadn’t been there, this Band-Tailed Pigeon,

Band-Tailed Pigeon

a bird I don’t think I’ve seen since Nisqually tore out the five-mile loop.

This was Jim and my last chance to do something together as he left for the airport early the next day. I did manage to get him there on time despite a traffic jam and an 8-mile backup on the freeway. He said he hoped there wouldn’t be thunderstorms in Newark on his return flight home. Strangely enough, WE had thunderstorms right after he left, a rare spring event here on the Pacific Coast. Somehow it seemed appropriate.

Some Things Never Change

The day after our 50-year high school reunion, Jim and I (and Leslie) visited the University of Washington, which might have held even more memories than West Seattle High, since we both got our BA degrees there and attended graduate school, at least for awhile. The college has changed considerably, even since my daughter graduated from there a little over 15 years ago, but it wasn’t too hard to navigate the campus because landmark buildings have stood the test of time.

It was a little surprising to discover that Parrington Hall has been remodeled and no longer houses the English Department. Jim seemed to know where the English department had been moved to, but we never did get around to finding it. In my head, at least, Parrington Hall will always house the English Department.

The HUB was still there, or at least the shell of the HUB was still there, but most of it was blocked off and it’s clear that it will probably be unrecognizable after the upcoming renovation. Despite the fact that some of my fondest college moments took place in the HUB it’s probably a very good thing that the university has made major changes because the food was always pretty bad, bad enough that I often brought a lunch from home, and not just to save money.

What really brought back a rush of memories for me, though, was our visit to the University of Washington Bookstore after we’d walked around campus. Of course, they’d moved the poetry section and added new sections but the poetry selection was just as magnificent as I remembered it. I focused on the Northwest Poets section and had a hard time limiting myself to just four books: Witherup’s Down Wind, Down River, Defree’s Spectral Waves, Sund’s Poems from Ish River Country, and Bierd’s First Hand.

I’ve revisited the University Bookstore much more than the University itself even though I still have a few books that I bought there when I was attending college that I haven’t read yet. In fact, one of my goals in starting this blog was to motivate me to finish reading books I’d bought at the bookstore many years ago. I’ve actually managed to finish most of them, including re-reading the Hardy novels that Mr. Thomas bought for me here when I was a senior in his class at West Seattle. Shopping here is my way of getting a “fix.” It’s one of the few of my habits I can heartily recommend.

We ended our visit to the U with an even older tradition, a delicious meal. Greek foods are one of my favorite, and I took Jim and Leslie to a fine Greek restaurant that Dawn discovered while she was attending The U, though I had to walk several more blocks up the Avenue than I remembered. While there I even re-discovered Skorthalia, a garlicy sauce that I’d somehow forgotten over time. No longer, I made it for Dawn’s birthday on the next Monday and was still eating it tonight with the leftover Lemon Soup.

Some traditions are too delightful to relegate to the past, and fine dining is certainly one of those traditions.