Month: December 2020

Surprising what you can see on the Dunes Trail

Now that I’m back to walking, we’ve tried to take advantage of every break in the clouds. I don’t usually take my camera when we’re just walking for exercise, but when we decided to walk the Dunes Trail I took my new camera hoping to get a better picture of the Sea Lions lounging on the new rock outcropping.  I thought I’d managed to get good shot of them this time, but once I put the shots up on the screen I realized that they were actually Harbor Seals.

The gulls were also obvious, but not even Leslie, who was using the binoculars, noticed that there were also Turnstones on the rocks.

Luckily, while observing the “seal lions,” I happened to look down on the rocks just below us and notice movement.  There were so many Turnstones that it was impossible to isolate them and ended up with this.  How many can you count?

The photographer in me hates shots like this where you have extraneous body parts lying around, but I did manage to isolate a single Turnstone in this shot. 

When you’ve been photographing wildlife as long as I have you learn to pay attention to what the crows and gulls are doing.  A small flock of them kept diving and taking off quite a ways off, and though I couldn’t tell while I was actually photographing I suspected there was a Sea Lion feeding, and, sure enough, you can just spot his back next to the gull on the left.

I confirmed that hunch with this shot and  knew where the Sea Lions I was looking for on the rocks had gone to.

Apparently disturbed by the flock of gulls, this Double-Crested Cormorant decided to find a quieter fishing area. 

Waughop Lake

After a week of only being able to walk with a crutch, I was looking for a relatively flat place to walk near Paul’s house and remembered that Waughop Lake used to be a good place to see overwintering birds.  However, when we got there, it was clear that the lake has changed considerably since visiting it a year ago.  First of all, it has shrunk considerably.  All the lilies that used to line the lake have died out because the water has receded. The ducks I’m used to seeing have been replaced by Canada Geese, and I didn’t see a single Grebe.

In fact, the only unusual bird I saw was this Scrub-Jay, which is a relative newcomer to the Pacific Northwest.

As disappointing as the birding was, this view of Mr. Rainier in its winter coat was well the effort of climbing the hill above the lake.  

Frosty

In a rare stroke of good luck, the bursitis in my knee disappeared enough that we could take advantage of an unusual sunny spell.  So, last Sunday we headed out through the morning fog to Theler Wetlands.  The tide was unusually high and we didn’t see a lot of birds, but the light was beautiful.  I tried to get a shot with my iPhone but somehow ended up making a .mov, so I borrowed this shot from Leslie, who uses her phone to take pictures a lot more than I do.

It’s clear that winter, at least our PNW version of winter, has arrived.  It was a frosty morning which made me want to snuggle with my winter gloves, but a 600mm lens isn’t very effective for close-ups of plants so I took my gloves off so that I could take shots with my iPhone. I thought the ice on the edges of the fern made their shape even more striking than usual.

The brilliant greens and reds of the holly made it clear why they were so important in winter rituals in earlier times.

Personally, I thought the ice clinging to the hardy leaves made them equally beautiful, but I’ll have to admit that it would be difficult to maintain that beauty inside next to a roaring fire.

Luckily, I find the muted colors and frosted leaves 

quite pleasing.