Category: Special Places

At Nisqually last Monday, two young ladies told me that they were looking for a Brown Creeper nest, explaining that Brown Creepers generally build their nests under a piece of bark. As I was finishing my walk Friday, I saw a Brown Creeper climbing up a tree near the parking lot.

I sensed immediately that the Creeper must be building a nest, perhaps because that’s what I’ve been seeing all week. Sure enough, as I watched the Creeper carried a twig up the tree

ducked down into an opening in the bark

and disappeared from sight,

only to emerge a few seconds later

and fly off to gather more nesting material.

In the three years I’ve been birding, I’ve never managed to get a decent shot of a Brown Creeper, but armed with a new awareness I manage to get some great shots within a few days.

Probably pure coincidence, but I still find it completely Amazing.

I’ve been feeling a little envious of the beautiful wildflowers that Kerrdellune has been showing on her web site, so I purposely set out with two cameras Friday when I set out for Nisqually, my 400mm lens for birds and a closeup lens for flowers.

Considering the 80 degree, plus, temperature, close-to-if-not-quite a record temperature this time of year, it seemed a little strange to still find a considerable number of spring blossoms from pure white

to pinkish-white blossom on long-abandoned fruit trees.

But it’s certainly been that kind of cool Spring so far. I still haven’t planted the corn because I was afraid it would rot in the ground. This wild variation of a bleeding heart has also been blooming for several weeks now.

Still the whites and pink are quietly giving way to the blues of lupine

and the brilliant yellows of dandelions, buttercups and this splendiferous “weed”

that I’ve been unable to identify so far, but is still spectacular enough that it inspired me to carry an extra camera with a close-up lens because I was unable to get a photograph of the only one I saw Monday with my telephoto lens. Needless to say, there were dozens blooming Friday.

After spending several beautiful days working in the yard this weekend, when I woke up to a beautiful sunny day I decided that I was going to go to Nisqually rather than finish up the yard work yesterday.

As it turns out, I’m really glad I did or else I would never have gotten to see these hummingbird nests that “Nisqually Bill” pointed out to me after we’d started talking.
Needless to say, the nests were virtually invisible, tucked away in the deepest part of
the tree where little or no light penetrated even on a this brilliant day. In this nest, the fledglings were about to fly. As we got to see one of the chicks lift off the net, and then settle back down, not quite ready to venture forth by itself. But it was clear that she would be flying within a few days.

Less than a hundred yards away was another nest, this time with much smaller chicks, with the mother still sitting on the nest keeping the chicks warm most of the time.

I was grateful to Bill for showing me the nests, but I was amazed at some of the things we discovered we had in common through our conversation. It turned out that we had been on the same boat to Vietnam, a small boat that carried only two battalions. He fought several major battles with members of my battalion after I had returned home. He asked if I knew Colonel Staley, who had been my battalion commander, and said he lived in Tacoma. Of course, from there we went on to share several similar observations about being a platoon leader and about our attitude toward the current wars. It is, indeed, a very small world.

He had to leave for an appointment, and I spent most of the rest of the day walking by myself, managing to get some very good pictures of the herons who seem to have returned in large numbers.

At the very end of the hike, I was talking another gentleman and while we were standing there talking we noticed this Black-Capped Chickadee return to its nest:

I was beginning to sense a real theme for the day.

We finally got a break in the weather Friday, and as much as I hated to I skipped out on my Yoga class again to go birding. And what glorious day it was.

I saw my first butterfly of the season, a beautiful Anise Swallowtail

There were more Yellow-Rumped Warblers than I’ve ever seen before, and the bright sunshine made it possible to use high shutter speeds even in the relative shade, making it possible to capture sharper images than in the past. Here’s an Audubon’s Yellow-Rumped Warbler:

There were so many warblers that I didn’t notice until I was sitting home in front of my computer that I had been shooting two different kinds of Yellow-Rumped Warblers.

But this Myrtle Yellow-Rumped Warbler has less yellow than its Audubon relative:

I would have been perfectly satisfied just to finally capture a good shot of a warbler, but there were birds everywhere, and my favorite shot of the day might have been this one of a Green-Winged Teal that seem not to notice that I was standing not more than three feet away from where he was swimming:

Heck, I got enough good shots from Friday’s shoot to fill up a week of blog entries, but with rain predicted the next three days, and who knows how long after that I’ll save a few shots for emergencies.