A Day in Port Townsend

I was shocked to realize it has been five months since Leslie and I had been to Port Townsend. So with a break in the weather this weekend, we decided it was time to go back. If I hadn’t had computer memory arriving Friday, we would have spent both Friday and Saturday there. Instead, we got up around 5:30 AM and headed out for breakfast at the Sweet Laurette Cafe & Bistro. It was a great breakfast, and we spent the morning visiting art shops, even though I was unable to indulge myself because I’d already spent too much updating my computer this month.

It felt strange driving back to Ft Flagler after visiting Port Townsend since we had always visited Ft Flagler first in the past. I wondered if the birds I usually see in the morning would be there in the afternoon. As it turned out birding was pretty awful, but it might have been because of the tide, and the winds, not the time of day.

The most spectacular “birds” we saw on our trip were actually humans riding the high winds on their parafoils.

parafoil

The real birds, though, were huddled on the south side of the jetty, forced up onto the grass fields because there was virtually no shoreline.

plover on grass field

I’ve always seen plovers on the shore before, certainly never foraging on grass fields.

The Harlequin Ducks were in the same place, hunkered up next to the shore avoiding the high winds.

three Harlequin Ducks

Unfortunately, by that time of the day the light was directly behind them and their beautiful colors were muddied, at best.

In fact, the only shot I got with good lighting was this shot of Pelagic Cormorants posed on the old pier posts.

Pelagic Cormorants

Usually they seem to be black, but seen in just the right light their iridescent green feathers seem quite beautiful.

3 thoughts on “A Day in Port Townsend”

  1. For once, your marvelous bird pictures were eclipsed by a human being. The shot of the person flying the parafoil is nothing short of spectacular. Wish I had the nerve to try it.

  2. I’m so happy your pictures now appear in your rss feed! I used only to be able to see them previously via Flipboard on the iPad. Hurrah!

    1. Yes, I was frustrated that I couldn’t see them there, either. Took me quite a long time to discover that there weren’t showing up because a long time ago I blocked sites from hot linking to my pictures, which I hate. Turns out you can’t have it both ways. So, for now, at least, I’ve turned off the controls to stop hot linking.

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