Month: June 2017

Just Paint Me Optimistic

As a photographer, I always believe that my next picture is going to be the best picture that I’ve ever taken. If I didn’t believe that, it certainly wouldn’t make any sense to have returned to Big Beef Creek early in the morning last week. Hoping to see some interaction between eagles and more interactions between eagles and Great Blue Herons (GBH), I got up early and arrived at Big Beef Creek about two hours after high tide.

Again I was rewarded with some shots of Great Blue Heron flying over in early morning light.

Unfortunately, the GBH were not catching any fish close to shore, and all I got was shots of them flying by.

Like any good fisherman, the herons started looking for better fishing grounds, which meant moving further and further away from where I was photographing. I was able to get a few shots that I liked, like this one,

but it didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t going to get anything special when they were this far away.

Pt. Defiance Rhododendron Garden

One of the major factors in deciding to buy our present home was how close it is to Pt. Defiance Park. Skye had to be walked everyday, and I could’t imagine a better place to do that then Pt. Defiance. The Spring after we moved here I discovered the Rhododendron Garden, and I haven’t missed visiting that ever year since. I was late getting there this year, but there were more than enough rhodies in bloom to justify our visit.

Most of the white varieties seemed past their prime, but there were a lot of purple

and red varieties

in full bloom. Many of the later varieties were about to bloom

into their full beauty.

So Much Beauty in an Ugly World

The worst part of Spring is that there are too many beautiful places to be all at once that I inevitably miss a great deal of its beauty. On an earlier walk without a camera, I noticed that the Iris had started to bloom, but I’ve been so busy birding that I wasn’t able to get back with a camera until Wednesday. I soon discovered that some of my favorite Iris are already gone, which isn’t to say that there weren’t still a few dazzling examples to be seen.

Experience has taught me that if the Iris are in decline the roses will be in full bloom. Although there were a few late-bloomers waiting for my heat and sunshine, there were so many roses blooming that it was difficult to decide which to photograph. Since a lot of the yellow roses were starting to fade to white, I decided to focus on them. When I think of roses, I tend to favor yellow roses,

though it’s impossible to ignore a striking yellow and red combination.

Of course roses aren’t the only flowers to be seen at the Point Defiance Garden. Two brilliant red Poppies

waved above the yellow and orange Marigolds that lined the outside edge of the Rose Garden.

Wonder What’s Going on Here

The more I bird, the more I run into “what-the-heck” kinda moments like the one I observed the other day at Theler Wetlands. We have been seeing Cedar Waxwings for a couple of weeks now, so I was looking for them on this visit. As it turned out, these two were right in the middle of the trail and impossible to miss. The one on the left seemed quite upset

and expressed that dissatisfaction when the other Waxwing flew off.

The second Waxwing flew back with a berry in its beak and seemed to offer it to the first Waxwing.

When the second Waxwing still didn’t actually give it to the first Waxwing, the first Waxwing became even more demonstrative.

About then the second Waxwing spotted me on the trail, turned, and flew off.

The first Cedar Waxwing didn’t fly off immediately. It sat there as if waiting for the second one to come back with that berry.

I’m still not sure what was going on, but I assume it was a courtship ritual (gone awry ?) though I haven’t been able to confirm that yet from anything I’ve found on the internet. It is possible that the bird demanding the berry was last year’s offspring and it is still demanding to be fed, but that seems less likely to me than the idea it is part of a courtship ritual.