Month: March 2018

No matter what birds I do or do not see on the Washington coach, I always enjoy my trip and look forward to seeing a variety of birds. My disappointment at not finding a single Common Loon in breeding plumage was tempered by how many species I did see.

I saw flocks of Greater Scaup at several different locations,

a pleasant surprise since I only see them occasionally on the Puget Sound.

And I almost never get as close as I did to these

in the Westport marina.

When I first saw this bird walking the shore in Tokeland I couldn’t figure out what it was even though I’ve seen them several times on the California coast and at Malheur NWR. This may be the only time I’ve seen a Willet

in non-breeding color. I think I have seen them on the Washington coast with Godwits before, but the Washington coast is supposedly outside their range.

Birds were scarce at Ocean Shores, but I did enjoy watching this small flock of Sanderlings fly back and forth along the beach.

We managed to get in five and a half miles of walking for the day without ever being aware that we were exercising. I also managed to spend an entire day without ever checking my computer or my iPhone.

Most of the time I simply allow the natural beauty of the birds I feature to speak for itself, but occasionally I feel the need to emphasize that appreciating Nature’s beauty is no longer enough in a society that seems determined to sacrifice it all to sell more stuff. That’s doubly true now that we’ve been Trumped, as anyone who loves the environment surely already knows. I generally don’t use words like “good” or “evil,” but I would have to say that Scott Pruitt, head of the E.P.A., is Pure Evil.

Although I have a couple of Dan Fogelberg albums, I hadn’t heard of his album “The Wild Place” until recently when I purchased it through iTunes. My favorite song on the album has to be Blind to the Truth.

In the overcrowded cities where the nights are bright as day
You spend your weekly paycheck and turn your eyes away
From the crisis we’ve created with our self-indulgent ways
Living like there’s no tomorrow, well that just might be the case
Now they’re tearing down the forests and the jungles of Brazil
Without a second thought about the species that they kill
But extinction is forever and still the forests fall
And push it ever closer to extinction for us all

But you’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
And you can’t see nothing
Cause you’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
And the judgment day is coming

Now the politicians bicker on the early evening news
Pledging their allegiance to whoever they can use
The corporate bosses snicker as they watch the profits soar
They don’t care what they make next month just as long as it is more
They take our farms and marshlands, drive nature to the wall
Just so they can build another Goddamn shopping mall
And it doesn’t seem to matter if they cannot see the stars
As long as they can keep on building obsolescent cars

They’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
No they can’t see nothing
They’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
But the judgment day is coming

Now you cannot drink the water and you cannot breathe the air
The sky is ripping open and you still don’t seem to care
The soil is tired and toxic and unable to provide
The clock is running out and there is nowhere left to hide
Now there’s laws that we must live by and they’re not the laws of man
Can’t you see the shadow that moves across this land
The future is upon us and there’s so much we must do
And you know I can’t ignore it and my friend neither can you